


As cold as Voeld

by AnaVakarian



Series: Beyond reason [5]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Romance, Alien Sex, Aliens, Angst, Camaraderie, Denial of Feelings, Evfra is in denial, F/M, Feelings, Friendship, Headcanon, Interspecies Relationship(s), Jaal is meddling again, Jealousy, Love/Hate, Masturbation, Military Background, N7 (Mass Effect), On-Again/Off-Again Relationship, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Outer Space, Post Andromeda, Post-Canon, Serious Injuries, Sexy Angaras, Sexy Voice, Sjefa meddles too, Slow Burn, Sparring, Wet Dream, gruffness, voeld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:55:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23278939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnaVakarian/pseuds/AnaVakarian
Summary: The Resistance leader joins the Tempest team with a mission to wipe off the map one of the last kett facilities in Voeld. But having Evfra as a companion doesn't prove to be an easy task. Especially when the relationship between Sara and the Angara seems to reach a dead end.
Relationships: Evfra de Tershaav & Female Ryder | Sara, Evfra de Tershaav/Female Ryder | Sara
Series: Beyond reason [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1639225
Comments: 58
Kudos: 129





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my first language so don't be surprised if the grammatical construction is a bit 'odd'. I'll try to do my best and if anyone wants to point out any mistakes, it would be appreciated :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back!!!!

“ _This is not a good idea…_ ” she thought, standing up at attention with an odd rush of nervousness in her stomach while the Tempest hatch lowered down, the clarity of Aya flooding the cargo bay of the spaceship. 

Two broad angaran figures stood against the blacklight, carrying a backpack and a rifle each. Discerning just their shadows and due to the absence of colours, they could have been easily mistaken with their similar height and weight. However, Sara was perfectly able to figure out which figure belonged to his friend Jaal and which one belonged to their special guest during that mission: the Resistance leader himself. 

There had been a change of plans, like always in that galaxy where nothing seemed to work out as it should. At least, not at first. 

After the battle of Meridian, the Moshae had taken hold of the Resistance, obliging Evfra to take a week off work: the first one in years. Her idea was to reward everyone with a short break to celebrate their victory, considering that the Kett activity had lowered down substantially. However, she had struggled to organize the different shifts and holidays periods. When the General finished his break, he realized that Sjefa had messed it up, mistakenly giving days off to half of the Resistance pilots on the same week: they would only have enough personnel to cover the basic services like transport, goods and food delivery… and nothing else. 

Even if he knew how to pilot a shuttle, the Moshae didn't want him to fly to the meeting point on Voeld by himself - she mentioned something about his piloting being too rusty. So the Pathfinder and her team had to stop on their way to the still-frozen planet in order to pick up the angaran leader who would join in with their mission: destroy a hidden and impenetrable kett facility and recover the mines of lithium underneath.

Her heart and her head had different opinions about having the General on board. On the one hand, she was quite excited to have some extra time with him. On the other hand… The Angara was a natural-born leader: he was used for people to obey him and used to being in charge. A pure alpha male. But this was _her_ ship, with _her_ people in command and, knowing Evfra as well as she did, Sara was certain that they would clash on their ways, inevitably. 

Once the hatch was fully open, both Angaras stepped inside: Jaal had a cautious smile on his face. And then, there was the blue guy, who was grave and as serious as the last time they spoke on a video call when he politely ‘ordered’ her to pick him up for Voeld. 

“Sara,” Jaal called once in the cargo bay with a friendly and easy tone, bowing his head in a sign of respect: even if they belonged to different armies, her rank was above his. 

Sara openly smiled at his friend, welcoming. Then, she looked at the newcomer. 

“ _Pathfinder_ …” Evfra’s darker accent accompanied the gruff tone of his voice.

“ _General_ …” she replied, and couldn’t help to add some mockery to the title. Evfra was still acting as if the night before the Battle of Meridian had not happened: that wonderful night when they both had fucked into oblivion. But it hadn’t been just a fling for her: she craved for more. 

Jaal had told her to give him time, but Sara was starting to doubt that the Resistance leader wanted anything else, being unable to know what was happening in his angaran mind with that odd situation. It was true that they were both at ease at each other. More natural, she would say. But that was it. The progress in their relationship was close to zero, Evfra keeping her at arms-length, then pulling her closer with some suave words or a worried email, just to kick her back out of his personal space on the next one.

She was a patient strategist and considered herself understandable and empathetic, but she was starting to grow a little tired of his lack of response.

“I don’t think you had the chance to visit the Tempest before, am I right?” she said still with her welcoming smile, ready for the obliged tour around her ship. 

“I haven’t had the pleasure before, you are right. However, Jaal had made a full report during his first week on board.”

Sara shook her head, looking to Jaal with a fake grimace and the named Angara blushed, apologetic “How dare you… You sneaky bastard!” she joked, slapping him on his arm. “Well, in any case, this is the cargo bay: if you want to train there’s a small gym there with some equipment. Nothing fancy, though. Liam’s quarters and Vetras’. Say _hi_ hun!” Vetra nearly choked on her coffee at the sight of the angaran leader walking into her quarters and Sara chuckled, being sure that was the reaction that Evfra probably caused wherever he went. There was a time when she had also felt intimidated around him.

Not anymore, though.

“I think it would be a good idea if we can leave our stuff in the tech lab… Because I guess Evfra would sleep there… with me, am I right?” Jaal asked, innocently, and Sara gave him a killing look in response. 

“Just if you don’t mind... I thought it would be more comfortable with you than in the crew quarters...” she casually said, pressing the elevator button.

“Yes… probably there are no other quarters in this ship where he would rather be...” 

This time, two pairs of eyes, cold starry blue ones and warm but freezing amber ones glared at the purple Angara who quietened himself with an amused and smug field around.

Sara didn’t mean to, but she blushed badly at the comment, especially after the somehow apologetic look that Evfra gave her. She escaped from the situation striding towards the labs swiftly, followed by the General, while Jaal stayed behind in the upper level of the cargo bay.

Evfra didn’t complain about the spartan improvised bedroom - not that he had loads of luxurious furniture in his house, either - and was amazed when they reached the Tempest bridge, asking Kallo about the controls and mechanics of the ship while taking off. Actually, very specialized and complex questions that made Sara wonder what were they talking about at all. 

Once his curiosity was fulfilled, they made their way towards the Deck 3 again, aiming the kitchen and the med bay, and Sara decided to break the silence after a little while, even knowing that her question would stir the past for sure. “Were you a pilot before?” 

“Before…?” he questioned stiffly. 

She didn’t mean to bring any other-than-professional topic up. “Before being the Resistance leader, I mean.”

Evfra relaxed his field slightly, leaving a pleasant ticklish sensation on the arm that was closer to him while walking.

“I used to… a long time ago, when I first enrolled. When I became a leader, I never had time to fly anymore...”

Sara nodded slightly. She knew that Evfra was still on field missions from time to time when he was required. His combat skills, hand to hand fight technique and his aim were enviable, as she had had the chance to confirm during the Battle of Meridian. However, she didn’t know that new facet of him. “Do you miss it?”

Evfra turned his lips into a thin tense line and Sara thought that he was going to snap at her shortly. He surprised her, though. “Yes… I do,” he rumbled quietly. Then, he seemed thoughtful, looking at the farther wall in the med bay. “It could be a good hobby to catch up with now I'm less busy, I suppose.” 

Should she push her luck further? Yes, why not? 

“Would you teach me?” she asked with a pleading playful voice. “I would have loved to learn during my years at the academy… But biotics were not allowed to it… Just field training.” 

Sara was already looking at him when he met her gaze with a tiny incredulous smile curling up his scarred lips. “You have to be crazy to want me as a teacher…” he joked. 

Evfra. Joked.

She didn’t just want him as a teacher. But the metaphor could do.

“And yet, I’m asking…” she replied, playful and sincere. And flirty.

Evfra didn’t take her words literally either, fully aware of the hidden meaning of them. His field crackled for a brief second with excitement before he softened it down, turning it contained and nearly nonexistent. “I will… think of it,” he uttered, walking out of the room like a scaredy-cat, not looking back at her.

Sara sighed. “ _One step forwards, one step back…_ ” she thought with resignation. The show had to go on, though. “These are the crew quarters and the bathroom and the next door is the kitchen: toilets are apart but showers are together. I hope you are not shy.” Her lip curled up on a twisted smile, but the angaran leader remained serious, examining the rooms thoroughly.

Finally, he shook his head with disapproval. “It’s too small. You cannot keep your troops morale if they don’t have their own space to disconnect.” His tone was imbued in criticism.

Sara cocked an interrogative eyebrow, giving the leader a sideways look. That was exactly what she had been expecting: sharp comments and disagreements. She wondered why she was surprised at all or if it has been the mention of her feelings that triggered it.

However, she knew he was right: how small the crew quarters were was the first thing she thought about when the ship was handed down to her. 

She decided to accept the blow with some good old sarcasm. “Sadly, I didn’t get the chance to choose a fancier or bigger ship and I still think that the pros surpass the cons. This lady is resistant, reliable, smooth and fast and she has the job done,” Sara explained, tinkering with the panel that opened the middle door. “Most of my crew have found another place to crash down, anyway and everyone has access to what the Pathfinder’s quarters were. I only use them for sleeping, anyway.”

The door made a hiss when it slid open and it led them into a massive and beautiful room with a viewpoint window open to space. Liam and Drack were sitting on the sofa, playing a videogame, and only the human stood at attention when both ranks got into the bedroom. “General Evfra. Pathfinder Ryder,” he saluted.

“At ease, Lieutenant,” they both replied in unison, making Drack cough a chuckle while Liam did his best to not burst into laughter at her expression.

“Sorry. Occupational hazard,” Evfra excused himself to everyone’s surprise before Sara dismissed Liam with a gesture. “You sleep here, then?” the Angara asked dryly, scanning the room to find a bed on the left corner and some of her armour scattered on the floor around it. 

“Yes, I do. Why? Are you interested?”

“You shouldn’t.”

Sara frowned at his answer, baffled. “I shouldn’t what?”

“Share your quarters with your crew. It doesn’t give you the privacy nor the hierarchy distance you need with them.”

Unbe-fucking-lievable.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake… You have just told me they needed space! This is the best arrangement I could make, considering the circumstances.” Wait, why the hell was she making excuses in front of that impossible grump? 

While she was gradually raising her voice with clear annoyance, Evfra’s remained low and surly when he spoke again. “Perhaps you should consider moving your quarters to the crew ones and dispose of this one for them...”

Sara froze. “ _Oh… Well… He might have a point…_ ” Probably that simple solution would have stopped the migration of crew members around the ship... “ _Fuck,_ ” she thought. It didn’t matter that he was right: his ways were not. “You have just arrived at _my_ ship and you are already pissing me off, _sunshine._ ” 

Evfra must have been getting used to the nickname because he didn’t even grunt this time when he heard it. “I am just pointing out what you can improve, Pathfinder. Nothing else,” he replied, smugly.

Drack snorted from the sofa, making them both look at him. “She’s not good at taking experienced advice, Evfra. Trust me…”

“Great! Old grumps team up together! Why am I not surprised…?” she complained, exasperated.

Evfra’s expression went from serious to annoyed in slow motion, deepening his frown as his translator started to work out the meaning of her irony. His lips curving down with disapproval at the direct mention to his age. 

Sara knew she was being too defensive and unfair. And too proud, too. Not that she was not willing to welcome or accept opinions and advice, but constructive ones. Evfra was using the same tone he would use for scolding any of his young recruits and she just hated it. 

“I think I can make my own way towards the tech lab, _Pathfinder_. If you allow me to walk freely in your ship,” he retorted, all sarcasm.

Sara’s blood boiled in her veins. That fucking bastard was able to stir the most extreme feelings in her: she hated him and yet…

One step forwards, two steps back.

“Dismissed, _General_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An idea popped in my mind the other day. Probably a little bit worn out but I decided to do it, anyway. Sooo... we are travelling to Voeld!  
> After their camaraderie, their night together, some nice comments and being close enough to use their first names during their occasional conversations, it seems that Evfra is unable to make up his mind regarding what he wants from Sara.  
> We will see if this mission in Voeld helps to clarify his mind.  
> Thanks for all the lovely comments and kudos on the other stories. You guys are amazing!


	2. Chapter 2

“What, then?”

Sara sighed, resting her hands and leaning onto the table in the meeting room. “I don’t know… if it’s any similar to the security they had when we rescued Sjefa, it won’t be difficult to crack…” She didn’t look extremely convinced, though.

“I would think that the kett updated their systems after that strike…” 

“Yes, that’s what everyone would think...”

“So, the plan is that we don’t have a plan?” Evfra was on the other side of the table, mimicking her posture. His expression was impenetrable and his electric blue eyes, stormy.

Defensiveness grew in her words. “What has your intel found out?” 

It was her time to attack, like in a fencing fight.

Evfra stiffened his shoulders. “My people have been able to locate the facility...”

“Well, my people did that as well…”

The cutoff sounded far more aggressive than she would have liked and the blue Angara snarled in a contained way, his glare freezing. A glare that didn’t intimidate her, although Sara decided to shut up.

“As I was saying, my people located the facility and were able to track and follow one of their shuttles to the entrance of the complex. We do have an entry point, which is more than we had yesterday.” It definitely was. “We have to figure out how many kett are still in it. Getting into a fight blindly has never been a good strategy…”

“It won’t be an easy task… All the signals seem to be jammed and they are interfering with the Initiative readings on body heat, too,” she commented gravely.

Evfra could understand that the kett were being cautious, especially considering that the Initiative and the Resistance wiped the Archon off the map. The beheaded kett militia were just trying to survive. 

“It can perfectly be empty…” Sara supplied, raising her eyebrows with hope.

“Or it can perfectly be packed,” Evfra replied, gruffly, frowning.

A whole minute went by. A minute where both leaders looked silently at the real-life holographic map of the facility on the table: a cubic construction fitted in between two rocky and icy peaks, covered in snow. No roads around. No visible entrance. No windows. Nothing except a complex system of caverns that the Angara had been able to partially map under the frozen surface using ultrasound devices.

The white-greenish ionic light of the map washed over both of them, Evfra’s skin had a curious turquoise colouration, more similar to his _rofjiin_ instead of the usual shades of pure blue. The sharp angles of his chin were accentuated with the shadows. But Sara looked absolutely surrealistic: her spotted white face had a curious bright green tone, in heavy contrast with the darker orange of her hair around her features. Evfra didn’t know exactly when he had stopped examining the map to focus his eyes on her. 

She looked alienly stunning.

Sara caught him on his staring.

They both spoke at the same time.

“I say we go in,” she spoke, passionate and determined.

“I say we wait,” he uttered, cautious and self-assured.

_Well… shit._

Their both expressions hardened with the other’s answer under the bright light of the maps, examining each other.

“That would be a rash decision. Reckless,” he explained after a while.

“Your men and the Initiative have been watching that facility for a whole month already. There’s nothing going in or out of it, apart from that single shuttle,” Sara replied.

“It was one of the most protected posts before you and your people arrived here. Even after that, I wouldn’t take it for granted.”

The tension of their postures and the volume of the conversation was escalating slowly.

“But the Archon is gone. We have no evidence that is still dangerous, indeed.” the Pathfinder straightened her spine.

“We can’t prove it otherwise, either,” Evfra merely replied with a loud growl.

“We couldn’t prove it otherwise either when you agreed for us to go ahead with this mission,” she retorted. “This is just ridiculous. We cannot freeze the whole operation now just because you have doubts,” she nearly screamed.

Evfra squared his shoulders and scrunched his nose slightly, glaring at her, and Sara knew he was about to snap. And she stood upright, ready for it.

Instead, he spoke, calmed and contained, although his tone was hard and freezing cold. “Fair enough, Pathfinder. This is your call.”

“You think I am making a mistake...”

“You _are_ making a mistake. Yes.”

Ryder clicked her tongue, frustrated, leaning back on the table and giving him a challenging look. It was her call, as he said. Not the time to be hesitant. “Small Resistance detachment, 15 of your best men. You, me, Jaal and Drack. Quick strike: we clean the building but we do not get in the mine: we will besiege them there. If they are in there.”

Evfra remained still and frowning. Then, he nodded his head slightly with his still stormy eyes. He turned on his heels and left the room without any words at all.

Sara followed his broad back and the subtle flutter of his _rofjiin_ until he was out of her sight. An effervescent fury began to growl in her chest with his indifference and she was barely able to contain her biotics to blast around herself. 

She slammed her hands on the table instead.

***

“Sooo… can you tell me once again what are you doing here?” Liam asked her, focused on the screen while Jaal used the wired remote of the old console that the human treasured in his quarters. 

“I haven’t told you… I’m just reading some datapads… writing some reports… normal stuff.” Sara’s voice was distant, extremely focused on the task in her hands, whatever it was.

The small man in dungaree jeans and a red hat jumped and grew on the screen when Jaal got to one of the mushrooms. “Aha! I’m good at this game, guys!” he shouted, all cheerfulness.

“I get that… but why are you hiding here?” Liam asked her, utterly ignoring his boyfriend.

“ _Evfra_ _?_ ” she thought. “I’m not hiding… It is quiet here, that’s it.”

In that exact moment, Jaal yelled with glee at a new achievement and Liam looked at her, condescending. Sara diverted the attention towards the game, catching a glimpse of it. “Wow… that is… quite ancient, indeed. 2D?”

“Yes, pre-virtual reality… I like old school and indie games and this one is amazing.”

“I’m still baffled they let you bring that video console to Andromeda.”

“Me too, to be honest. Jaal had to make an electricity converter only to turn it on and now, look at him… he’s totally hogging it…” 

Jaal, who had been ignoring them making the little man jump on the screen, collecting coins and dodging what look like carnivore plants, finally paid attention to the complaint. He stopped playing and threw the remote to Liam. “And speaking about sexy and hot Angara… Have you apologised already?” he spoke.

“Why should I apologize for?” she asked, frowning and genuinely questioning.

Jaal gave her a cheeky look. “You are both stubborn assholes… I suppose that’s natural when you put two alpha _pyjaks_ in the same cage...” Sara scrunched her nose at the comparison, leaning back on the sofa. “The thing is that you called him _old_ in front of everyone. We, Angaras, are a little sensitive with any illness-related topic, as you know, and old age carries a lot of it… We avoid pronouncing that specific word. You can say _experienced_ when we want to remark that someone actually has lived for many years and has that wisdom the age gifts you with. I would consider Drack very experienced, according to our standards. And even old, as he is quite wrecked already. But Evfra is not _old_ at all…”

“But he is older than me, isn’t he?”

Jaal nodded, confirming. “But not _that_ old. The fact that you are young doesn’t make him _old_ _per se_...”

“I… didn’t know it was such a great deal… I was just joking… as always.” Sara barely said. “You think he is upset about it?”

Jaal shrugged his shoulders. “I would…” 

“Mmm… that’s a thing I should probably remember, shouldn’t I?” Liam left the game to smooch Jaal’s cheek with a smile. 

“Better you do…”

The human chuckled and the Pathfinder looked blankly at the screen, thoughtful, where Mario was jumping. They both, Jaal and Liam, were just so sweet together… She was nearly jealous of it. “I had no idea… Why didn't he say anything? He could have scolded me further...”

“Because I spoke to him after,” Jaal said, smugly.

A loud and incredulous snort escaped her involuntarily. “Shit, Jaal… You are such a matchmaker…”

The Angara grinned from ear to ear. “Happy to help. I wouldn’t do it if I thought it wasn’t worth the effort.”

“Pff… Well, happy to hear that you think there’s still hope…” She was not that sure, though.

“Speak to him,” he advised patiently.

Sara thought for a little while. “I will. I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Last week I obviously had plenty of time to write... The bright side of the lockdown, I suppose. So I'm publishing this chapter a little bit earlier than I expected. I am quite inspired at the moment with this story and the next one might come real soon too ^^  
> Thanks to everyone who is reading, dropping comments and leaving kudos. It seems a silly thing, but it is so nice to see that people are actually enjoying the story... :)  
> The mention to Super Mario was a silly thing (my husband was playing when I was writing and it was like... "oh, why not?" hahahaha  
> And Evfra is, once again, being a pain on the neck. However, he gets Sara to get her ways, I want to think because, even if he doesn't agree with her, he respects her as a leader and is willing to follow her... Despite leaving quite clear that he completely disagrees with it.  
> (Btw, Liam and Jaal are just super sweet together and I love them)


	3. Chapter 3

Just a few hours to arrive at Voeld and jump into the mission, Sara was still convinced of her approach. The Angaran intel in Voeld had been able to finally conduct a thermal scan on the building, revealing the presence of, at least, 20 kett in the inside. The common team Angara-Initiative also had the element of surprise on their side so the only obstacle to save would be hacking the defences on the building to grant them entrance.

The mission seemed to be easier than anyone expected and she felt considerably more relaxed than the day before when she had the argument with Evfra, having some data to back up her decision. 

She got into the bathroom knowing already that someone was using the showers, but she didn’t mind: all her crew had been using those common bathrooms for nearly a year already, there was nothing left for imagination and, being on the military, the concept of privacy was actually quite diffuse and low compared to everyone else's standards.

The door slid open and a cloud of steam and an unknown flowery scent welcomed her. A scent she didn’t recognize as an Initiative issued odourless soap but it was neither one of Jaal’s. Sara stepped in holding the gaze of the electric blue eyes of the Angara that was using the other cubicle. Probably the only person on board she had never seen in those showers before.

“Pathfinder…” Evfra greeted her, not being bothered about his nudity at all. 

“Ey, _sunshine_ …!” she replied cheerfully while unwrapping the towel from around her body and hooking it outside the shower. 

Evfra diverted his gaze when she got naked without any short of shyness and focused on the pleasurable feeling of the hot water and the relaxing smell of the soap. However, he was still able to see her slender figure in the corner of his eye: all creamy and dotted skin, soft curves and orange hair. The Angara closed his eyes and deep-breathed. Then, he turned the temperature of the water down several degrees.

They hadn’t spoken at all after their disagreement about the mission to come. He was actually surprised that she called him _sunshine_ again. Actually, Evfra was surprised that hearing that annoying nickname on her lips was a sort of relief for him. “It seems that my intel has finally backed up your decision, Sara.”

She turned the shower on. “Yes… But I’m not going to boast about it, Evfra, calm down. Although my inner self wants to jump for joy in front of you, I won’t,” she joked, tired.

Evfra snorted loudly, considering how annoying she actually was. “You have been lucky this time: the decision of getting in there without conclusive data is still reckless…”

“Evfra, d’you know what? Shut up...” 

He turned around to face her, eyes wide open, field spiking half surprised, half furious. No one had ever dared to tell him to shut up before. Never. 

But before he was able to say a single word, and probably noticing the storm coming, Sara spoke again, pacifying. “You are right: I like taking risks, that’s how I play this game. I am reckless. It has worked for now, though. It is also true that now I don’t have the pressure of saving my species anymore, I might be able to take things calmly… But, first and foremost, I don’t want to argue with you, ok?”

The calming effect those words had on him were astonishing. He didn’t know a lot of people able to recognize their weaknesses. He sighed under the water. “It is also true that I’m too used to having people obeying me blindly and I am aware that my tone is quite… gruff most of the times. It is a good thing to have a second point of view and I’m glad that point of view is yours, Sara.”

It was impossible for her to hide the prideful smile widening on her lips. They remained on a comfortable quietness until Sara unwrapped her Initiative issued soap bar and scrubbed it on her hair. 

Evfra’s nostrils flared, sniffing. First, in a subtle way. But then loudly, turning his face towards her. “What are you doing?” she asked, baffled at his behaviour. 

“That scent is hideous… I mean… there’s no scent at all,” he said, completely serious.

Sara couldn’t help a chuckle. “I know, right? And my hair looks awful using it…There’s nothing good with this soap!”

“Your hair is beautiful,” Evfra automatically replied and Sara was sure she blushed slightly. “Perhaps I can figure something out once we are back on Aya.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, rinsing the remaining bubbles from her hair.

“Soap-wise. Angaras are skilled at making our own lotions and care products.”

Sara looked at him with surprise. Jaal had always told her about how actually personal the personal care products were. One doesn’t make a perfume or a soap for a colleague, but for a very close friend, a member of the family or… to someone special, to put it that way.

“Yes!” she replied, perhaps a little bit enthusiastically. “I’d love that.” 

It was Evfra’s turn to secretly smile. 

“By the way… This is really eating me up since I spoke to Jaal… I’m sorry that I called you ‘old’. Sometimes I just can’t put a filter on my words…”

Evfra chuckled, as he had nearly forgotten the unfortunate incident. “It’s ok, Sara. No harm done.”

Again a couple of silent seconds went by. 

“Sooo… How ‘experienced’ are you, then?”

Evfra took a deep breath and let the air go slowly through his nose. “It is true that you don’t have a filter…” he complained. “You are not leaving this alone, are you?” 

She looked at him, scrunching his nose in response. “You know I can be quite stubborn…” 

Sara gave him a playful look. Her cheeks were lit and her skin shiny with the wetness of the water when he turned his eyes to her, thinking quietly. “Forty of your human years, I believe… Slightly more, perhaps.”

“Oh! Jaal was right, then. Not _too_ experienced.”

He frowned. “Wait… did you think I was more _experienced_ than that?”

“Perhaps… I don’t know… I couldn’t be sure. You are quite mature, definitely. But it has nothing to do with your actual age…”

“Mmmh… I don’t think I can take that as a compliment.”

“It’s not a bad thing, either.”

Evfra suddenly realized that he had been for nearly 15 minutes under the water when it usually took him 5 to have a shower. Someone else will complain about the water usage for sure. And, what it was worse, the conversation had turned into something quite intimate. She was crumbling his walls, once again, and he had allowed her. But he should not. _Skkuting_ stars, he had offered her soap… What was he even thinking about? His fears and his heart, fighting again like they always did. He turned the shower off and walked out his cubicle, wrapping his towel around his narrow waist, catching a glimpse of her back and her perfectly round buttocks. A flame of heat sparkled in his belly with the memory of his hand running over her skin. 

He brushed it off immediately. “Sara... What happened between us. Right before Meridian. I’m sorry about it.”

There was a deadly quietness after he spoke where only the running water was audible. 

The words fell into her stomach like a ton of bricks. “What?” she asked, bewildered, looking over her shoulder. 

“You were clearly emotional and I took advantage of the situation. It shouldn’t have happened.”

“Wait… what?” She was baffled and offended now. Sara turned the shower off and left her cubicle, wrapping the tower around her body at the same time she walked towards him. Confronting him. “Do you really mean that? For real? You know that you need two to tango, right?”

Evfra remained quiet with a thoughtful expression while the translator gave him an approximate meaning of her words. 

“Still, I took advantage of your situation…”

Sara snorted loudly, cutting him short. “You what??? For fuck’s sake, Evfra… Do you really consider me that naive and ‘inexperienced’ to melt into your attentions if I didn’t want to?” she retorted, the volume of her voice escalating slightly. 

However, the Angara kept his voice low and calm. “I didn’t mean that... I’m just saying it was not the right thing to do....”

He looked genuinely apologetic but his way of acting did nothing more than annoying her further. “I just can’t believe we are having this conversation… You are infuriating with all your overthinking! One minute, you are making soap for me, with all the tangled angaran meaning that it has, and the next one you are pushing me away again. What is wrong with you? Are you actually that scared to admit that that night was amazing? That it was actually more than a goodbye fuck? That you actually care about me?” She was screaming now. In the Tempest. In the bathroom. Both naked under the towel. And she was really really annoyed. “Do you really think _I_ was a mistake?” 

He darted a hand to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. Her breath was shaky and her eyes looked at him with pain. 

Evfra had to say something. He had to decide. His heart begged him to kiss her, but his mind stopped him, once again. Was he prepared to love again? Was he ready to endure another loss?

He clenched his teeth. Her skin was soft and hot under his nude fingers and her lips opened in a silent plea. She was expecting him to say something. 

To act. 

The door hissed. 

“ _For the Goddess tits_! You have been here for two hours! Is there any water left at all?” Peebee screamed, getting in the small bathroom and interrupting whatever it was happening in there.

Evfra and Sara sprung apart. 

Her expression shifted with the events “Oh, oh… Ooooh! Bad timing?” Her apologetic gesture was comical.

Sara smiled sourly. “Not really. We were done here, I think.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was not my intention at all! I mean, a shower, both naked, Evfra complimenting her hair, all the soap thing... Damn brain! I could foresee the smut coming? Why did you take me to that ending instead? Well, I think were will have to wait a bit longer for Evfra to make up his mind, guys... ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> Thank you all for reading, kudos and comments! And for the reblogs on Tumblr!!!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of this chapter is inspired by chapter 16 of the wonderful Borderland Sorrows, by SerialChillr. You can read it [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20758280/chapters/56298526#workskin). I just had to try it with Evfra ^^

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW warning ahead, guys! (sex)  
> I updated the rating, too.

The rustling of the curtains waving on the open window took her partially out of her slumber but she didn’t open her eyes. The environment became a high tide of sensory input around her: the quietness in the room, the fluffiness of the mattress under her body, the softness of the pillows, the texture of the linen, feeling like silk under her skin, the floral scent that surrounded her… That was clearly not her room but everything gave her a peaceful feeling, like if she belonged there.

The bed dipped behind her when someone rolled closer. She felt the warmth of a broad naked chest against her back. Different.

The calmness feeling was still there: she belonged there.

A hand brushed her hair away from her face and behind her ear with delicacy and she moaned with the path of nips and kisses that were slowly dropped from her neck to her bare shoulder. Then, a feather-like caress replaced the lips, sliding slowly down the side of her torso, waist, hip and thigh, following her curves with devotion. Her skin turned into goosebumps at the touch and at the feeling of his sweet breath brushing lightly the nape of her neck before he kissed her there. 

Sara shuddered, white heat blossoming already at the ministrations when his hand travelled up deliberately slowly on her inner thigh. She opened her legs slightly: an invitation and moaned when he got the hint. His breath turned ragged too when he slid up a finger over her slit, teasing in soft movements. It made her roll her hips, demanding more from him, anticipation pooling between her legs.

And he complied. His finger parted her folds gently, gathering some of the moist at her entrance before slipping back up to focus on her clit.

Sara whimpered, white stars glowing behind her closed eyes. She clung at his thick arm, urging him to continue. Her breath fastened. She pushed her hips back, rocking his erection against her buttocks. 

The pressure felt too good. Everything felt far too good.

She was about to shatter, the pleasure growing in her, flooding her, overwhelming her…

“ _Pathfinder..._ ” he whispered in her ear in a gruff but sexy tone. 

Sara sucked in a breath. Her eyes snapped open.

“ _Evfra?_ ”

She startled, waking up from her dream and sitting up on her sofa, where she had fallen asleep. Her eyes were wide in confusion and she was heavily panting.

“Pathfinder? ETA 10 minutes. We have arrived at Voeld,” she heard Kallo say on the comm.

“Yes! Yes… received. Thanks, Kallo,” she barely said, rubbing a shaky hand over her sweaty forehead, trying to normalize her breath. “Fuck, SAM, why you didn’t wake me up?” she asked, grumpily.

“You seemed to be enjoying yourself, Sara.”

“No, shit… It wasn't… I didn’t...“ She could feel her underwear uncomfortably damp and she was still turned on as hell.

“I can relieve the tension chemically if you want me to,” SAM offered, ignoring her stutter. 

She was really tempted about accepting his offer but a cold shower or perhaps her own fingers would do the trick. However, the memory of who was in her dream made her come out of her lewd mood quickly. 

Sara sighed in despair, trying to brush the feeling of belonging away. “SAM, I think I’m screwed up…Have you got anything that fixes that?”

***

They finally disembarked on Voeld, in the middle of a snowstorm, which was not a surprise at all. Commander Heckt was there waiting for us and ready to pick the team up and take them to the angaran base on the planet. The Nomad would also be deployed once the snowstorm eased - probably during the evening. Besides Evfra and Sara, Jaal and Drack would accompany them on the mission. 

“Winters are rough in Voeld and most of my men have developed this interest in hand-to-hand combat recently… Drack, try not to harm any of them badly,” Evfra mentioned with his gruff tone but in an easy mood. A sort of a joke that left the Krogan baffled. 

“Well, at least we have discovered a bit of humour under the frozen crust, ey General?” he retorted with mockery.

Evfra’s lip curled upwards on its scarred tip and Sara gave him a sideways sceptical look, secretly considering how sexy that gesture was. Well, she had it bad... Even if he still seemed to have a broomstick up to his bottom and the gruff tone and personality hadn’t changed that much, the Angara was - finally - at ease around some of the aliens. And that was a giant step for everyone.

“We are not spare in beds so you might have to share my people’s barracks. And someone will show you your accommodation once we arrive, Pathfinder.”

It would have been too much to ask for him to say her name one more time. Sara nodded evenly and looked out the window at the dense white curtain of falling snow.

“What about a bar… Not that I’m thinking of getting pissed, but I want to know that the option actually exists.”

“There’s a _tavetaan_. All bases have one. But it’s unlikely we have any _ryncol_ …”

Drack snorted. “I can survive for a day or two with your _tavuum_ , that won’t be a problem… But don’t tell anyone.”

They have already been on that base before, carrying out some tasks for the Angaras here and there and resting when they had to reset Voeld’s vault, so the Pathfinder group were not complete foreigners. Just after arriving, Evfra left them to check on his men, leaving Heckt in charge of showing them their beds. Sara scoffed when she realized Evfra had actually given her a small private room, recalling the argument in her Tempest quarters a couple of days ago. “Well, I guess he wins this time…” she complained to herself before dropping on the bed. 

Her relaxation attempt didn’t last long. Five minutes after taking off her armour, Jaal and Drack were knocking on her door.

“Wow! Private quarters like a proper Commander. Evfra is spoiling you!” the Angara joked with a meaningful look, both making their way in. 

Sara chuckled bitterly, sitting up in bed. With both bulky aliens there the space to stand up and move around was nearly nonexistent. “He’s an ass and I know you are here to make me spill the beans about the argument in the showers. But, before you ask, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Mhmmm… Fair enough, girl. But you’ll need to let out all that rage... What about a fight?” the Krogan suggested with his best innocent face: a terrible attempt. 

“Drack, I don’t know if it’s a good idea… Angaras have mastered the hand-to-hand combat technique. It won’t be as easy as you expect to beat any of these soldiers…” Jaal tried to explain, but he stopped himself seeing how Drack’s eyes began to glow with the challenge.

“Kid… If you were trying to convince me otherwise, you are doing an awful job…”

Jaal shrugged his shoulders. “I know Turians and Krogan have the same way of blowing up steam but I’ve never heard about humans… If you want to… I can introduce you.”

Sara was silent, looking at both men in her quarter-cupboard. “ _Blow up steam…"_ If Drack needed it, she wouldn’t object to it. Perhaps she needed it as well. If a female wanted to fight too… Sara found herself considering the Krogan’s idea. “You know what? Let’s do it!”

There was a crowd of Angaras cheering and whooing the two fighters that were on the improvised ring. They opened the circle, making space for the newcomer aliens that joined the show, some of them, surprised to see the Pathfinder there. It was hot, really hot in that space thanks to the solar lamps that were gathered around and both, the purple and the massive blue Angara that were fighting, had taken their tops off. After a quick attack from the blue guy, a precise chokehold, a knockdown and three seconds pinning the purple Angara on his back, the blue soldier was declared the winner and raised his hands on a victory sign. Everybody clapped and the Angara looked around, still high in his victory, trying to find his new rival. His eye-scan halted in Drack. With a smug grin, the fighter pointed at the Krogan, inviting him to the ring. To be honest, that blue Angara was massive. Drack was probably the only one in that place that could stand a fight against him. 

“I have just arrived and trouble calls me already. Remember to pick my teeth from the ground if he knocks me out,” Drack told his companions, grinning widely and unclasping his armour before jumping in the ring where the smug Angara waited for him. 

Three rounds after, some splashes of yellow and blue blood, different scratches and bruises on both opponents and a broken krogan tooth, the blue Angara pinned Drack on his back, ending the fight. 

With his nose dripping blood and a dark purple eye, the blue guy lent a hand to Drack to stand up. “Good combat, alien.”

The _experienced_ Krogan grunted in response. “You too… But I’ll ask for a return game once we finish the mission. Be ready!”

The fighter chuckle and Drack left the ring limping and holding his ribs with his hand. He seemed oddly pleased and delighted and far more relaxed. “I’m starting to get too old for this…" He complained with a chuckle. 

“Are you ok? Do you need the infirmary…?” Jaal asked with a mildly concerned tone. 

“Of course not! I’ll be as fresh as a daisy tomorrow for sure. Who’s next?”

The blue guy finally got down the ring and a green-skinned soldier jumped in. He was not as muscular, neither as tall as the blue guy, but he also looked at the alien group, challenging them. Jaal sighed, feeling all eyes on him, and cracked his neck graciously, ready for the fight. However, the green guy didn’t invite him in.

“Pathfinder, would you honour me with a fight?”

Sara snapped her eyes open at the mention of her title.

Everyone went quiet.

The green guy smirked, offering his hand as if they were about to begin a dance.

Well, that was not what she had in mind the day, but... “Yes! Why not?” she uttered, raising a round of cheers around them. 

“Yes! Go for him!” a female Angara shouted from the group ahead.

“Kick his ass, human!” someone else screamed.

Sara jumped into the ring ignoring his hand, and walked around while stretching her muscles, studying her opponent. “ _Young and cocky. Slightly taller than me… Don’t get into his reach. Wait until he attacks to respond. He looks strong but rather slow. That’s his weak point. He’s got strength. You have flexibility. Just keep your distance and it will be easy as cake,_ ” she thought while tying her hair up. The Angara removed his top and Sara copied him, the black Initiative sports bra on sight. 

The green guy showed her a smug grin while trying to keep his eyes on her face, not lowering them down to her rather-scarce breasts. She couldn’t blame him: she would have been curious too if she was about to have her ass kicked by a semi-naked alien. 

Sara smirked back at him, circling the ring with paced steps like a caged feline, vigilant at each of his movements.

He attacked first, as expected. 

Sara dodged his grasp attempt and threw a blow to his chin. He looked surprised and stepped back. Before thinking of any further strategy, he attacked again. Sara stopped one blow to her stomach but not the one that aimed for her jaw. She jumped back when he kicked and grabbed his leg, using his momentum to throw off his balance, making him fall onto his bottom.

The Angara sprung up and the cheers around them became louder. Sara adopted a defensive position and they teased each other for a little while, finding their weaknesses. He threw another attack when she lowered her guard, grabbing her left arm with his, bending it and making her fall on her knees. Sara reacted and jerked her arm from his grip - a lucky thing that she was all sweaty now - rolling onto her back, wrapping his legs around him and shoving him onto the ground.

Sara stood back up panting at the same time the Angara did. She wiped off the blood that had appeared on her lip and looked at it with surprise. “You have pissed me off now, boy,” she said right before the guy tried to get her with another powerful kick. She dodged it and kicked his side swiftly. The Angara backed off. Before he could make any other movement, she front-kicked him in his stomach, making him stumble back further, and stroke his head with a roundhouse kick. Her opponent fell on his knees and hands and Sara used that halt to gather his right arm and bent it behind his back. He fell on the ground with a hiss when she dug her knee on his back, immobilizing him. At that point in a real-life situation, she would have used her biotics to pin him in place, but she couldn't, there. The guy struggled: Angaras were broad and strong, definitely more than she was. Sara’s heart thumped loudly in her chest while keeping the guy in place. Even if using her full strength, and her whole weight, she didn’t know if she would be able to keep him pinned for three seconds.

And it turned out that she couldn’t. 

The green guy jerked his arm out of her grip, twisted his body, clasped her waist and, with a single movement, shoved her on her back. She emitted a pained moan when he sat on her thighs, blocking their movement, leaned over her and pinned her hands above her head. 

They were both panting at the effort, their faces that close that she was able to feel his ragged breath on her face. Sara noticed that his pupils were widely blown and dark and he was smirking.

She had seen that expression before: on Evfra.

The green Angara was turned on. 

And she was, too. A little. 

“Jovak, that’s enough,” someone barked from the circle with an authoritative tone.

Sara startled, recognizing the voice. 

“But we haven’t counted! She can still win!” a female angaran complained.

“We have an important operation coming up tomorrow. What you should be doing is resting. You can carry on with this after the mission.”

Jovak still held her wrists with bruising strength before blinking a couple of times without breaking eye contact. He let them go after. Sara didn’t need to look to know that Evfra had been the one giving the instructions to finish the combat. He was still at some distance, observing them both with a deep frown. Jovak, blissfully unaware of the Resistance leader's look, stood up and Sara accepted the hand that he offered her. “Good combat, human. I wouldn’t mind carrying this on further. With fewer clothes and in a more pleasurable way, of course,” he whispered in her ear, intentionally close and definitely suggestive.

A rush of white heat made her doubt.

Sara gave a sideways look to Evfra: the angaran leader was glaring at Jovak with a coldness that could have lowered the temperature of the planet several degrees further down. His expression changed when he got caught, turning on his heels swiftly and striding away. 

“Oh, well…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hand-to-hand combat is a must with Evfra and is in many fanfics. I wanted to give it a little twist here, being the one observing rather than fighting with the Pathfinder. I'm aware that the sexual tension is not the same - not even by far - but is a good opportunity to give that grumpy hesitant Angara a fistful of reality: she won't wait forever and there are more guys in Voeld, so hurry your blue sexy ass, mate!  
> I hope you are all fine! Thanks for reading! ^^


	5. Chapter 5

Evfra sat down at the edge of the facility, his legs folded under his body, mediating while looking at the quiet and stunning night-sky. 

The sky in Voeld had a beauty that just a few planets were able to surpass. Perhaps Havarl on a good day... But Voeld’s had always been special: it was his home, at the end of the day. Evfra still kept memories of his planet when the weather was milder, less harsh. It turned freezing and uninhabitable at the same time he did: a clever metaphor of his life. 

Nostalgia wasn’t something Evfra dealt well with: his past was stored and locked away far in his memories and it was only brought back when it was vital. After what happened there, with his family, he had sessions with a counsellor. Tons of them, actually, in order to be able to overcome the traumatic experience he had been through. Only him and the Moshae were aware of how vulnerable he was back on those days. How close he had been to give up several times, not being able to gather the strength to carry on. But it had been after one of those sessions when a seed of an idea planted deeply in his mind. The battle was not lost: he found a new goal. A new reason for living. He wouldn’t let anyone else go through the same experience he had gone through. He would pull together that bunch of disorganized cowards that the Resistance had turned into and would make good soldiers out of them. An army able to confront and to defeat the Kett. 

That had been the only reason that kept his world spinning and got him up every single morning, fighting to survive.

Every new victim. Every family he was not able to protect. Every soldier left behind… He assumed all them as personal failures. Sjefa told him not to blame himself, but he couldn’t. They were all his responsibility at the end of the day. It didn’t matter that he had been able to save the whole battalion just leaving a soldier behind. Or that a whole town was saved but an only family that his men were not able to reach on time.

But that guilt, because he couldn’t save them all, kept him improving. And kept him fighting.

And, now, after the alliance with the Initiative and the Battle of Meridian, the Archon had been defeated. The Kett had been nearly wiped out - just a few of them were still scattered on Heleus - and the colonies were relatively safe. His life-goal had been achieved: the Kett were defeated and he felt utterly lost.

Furthermore, the damned orange-haired stubborn woman and her AI were even able to fix the vaults, reverting the climatic deterioration of their worlds. Voeld was still as cold as hell, but the temperature had gone up several degrees, making it inhabitable again. Another metaphor, perhaps?

_What to do next?_

The word _retirement_ came up briefly during a meeting with the Moshae one day, but Evfra rejected it categorically: even if there were no more hard battles to be fought, there were still Kett awaiting to be kicked off the borders of their cluster. Sjefa also gave him a sort of semi-diplomatic role he already hated, working together with the Initiative military leader, Kandros, as well as with the Pathfinders in order to keep exploring the galaxy, preventing any possible security issues or dealing with them when necessary. 

A boring task and more spare time than he had ever had before. 

Sjefa had also become very nosy regarding his own private life. Angaras were open with physical contact and sex was considered a normal need for everyone. He had had several partners during those years, of course: sex was necessary for stress relief and biological reasons. His sporadic encounters had never grown further than a mutual physical attraction and perhaps some admiration, but there were no other feelings involved at all. When some of his partners demanded more of him, he just couldn’t do it: the agreement was over. But it seems that the Moshae had immediately caught his mixed-up bioelectric field around the human Pathfinder and had been trying to sneakily set them up for meetings and pair them for every mission since then, meddling shamelessly.

That sly old woman... 

It was her fault that he was sitting down on the frozen ground on Voeld, more confused than ever.

The introspection was needed after the recent events. No matter how much he pushed Sara away from him: she kept stepping closer again, again and again. But, he wanted her to do that, didn’t he? The rush of jealousy when Jovak whispered in her ear with a very clear _aroused_ bioelectric field around them still had him baffled. But Sara was not _Evfra’s_ to possess; he had made that quite clear. He didn’t want her to be _his_ , did he? Why did the thought of Sara under Jovak’s body, as she had been with him some weeks ago, made him boil inside?

As an Angara, he should be good at dealing with his own emotions. He must have lost skills over the years… Or perhaps he was just broken after everything that had happened in his life… “ _You damn old fool…_ ” he thought, rubbing both hands on his temples, foreseeing the more-than-sure headache he will be suffering by dawn.

He heard the steps behind him but just thought it would be the night patrol. Evfra didn’t pay any attention to them until a figure wrapped in blankets stood next to him. 

“Mind if I sit?”

Evfra startled. His eyes darted up at Sara’s face as if he had seen a ghost. 

_It didn’t matter how far he pushed her away…_

“Go ahead,” he finally managed to say.

There had been no _sunshine_ this time and her expression was moderately grave, but he felt comforted by her presence there.

The human sat next to him, keeping some distance. There was a red-purplish bruise on her chin where Javok had punched her and her hair was loose and wavy around her face. She unfolded another blanket she had brought and gestured at him if he wanted to share it. Evfra shook his head and Sara shrugged and threw it over her head and shoulders. 

“You don’t seem to cope very well with the cold…” he observed, breaking the silence.

“-10 Celsius is not a temperature many humans can cope with… Definitely, we are not made to endure...” she explained, shivering slightly and wrapping herself further up. “I just wanted to check if you are ok.”

She was strangely serious while looking at him. “Ok with what?” 

Sara rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s 5 o’clock in the morning and you are out in the open, looking at the sky... Yep, everything seems just fine, you know?”

Evfra snorted, staring back at the named sky. The green aurora borealis waved and danced in the ocean of starry black that faded to different tones of blue and purple up there. 

It was stunning. 

“The sky was not like this when I was a child... There were no auroras, only the velvety pitch-black background, the moon and the stars. It was when the planet began to cool down when the colours changed: while the planet turned unlivable and hostile slowly, the sky became more and more beautiful. Strange, isn’t it?”

Sara seemed to be scrutinizing his face in depth, for sure bewildered by his rambling, before she looked up. They spent several minutes in compassionate silence, just enjoying the quietness and the wonderful view. 

Until Evfra chuckled. Sara looked at him, amused, but he kept staring up. “I sneaked out of my house one night with my older sister. We had one of those back then new camera sensory devices and we wanted to make a film about the sky. Our grandparents always said that when the aurora was fading in the horizon it was possible to hear the _yevaras_ singing. Have you ever heard a _yevara_?” he asked her, turning his gaze to her.

“Yep. But it was a while ago… actually, I don’t even know if I made it up. They were swimming under the ice.”

Evfra gave her the hint of a smile. “Yes, they do that now everything is frozen... We spent the whole night out in the woods like if we were filming the most serious documentary and we must have fallen asleep at some point. The sun was out when we both woke up. My parents had absolutely gone mad when they discovered that our beds were empty. I had never seen them like that before. It was the worst scold I’ve ever received in my whole life. They thought we had been taken… I never understood the real danger that the Kett meant back then.” He explained, nostalgic. 

“I always had you for a very cute and formal little child. I can’t picture you being that cheeky,” she said with a light tone.

“Trust me, you would be surprised. I was the youngest one of six siblings. Being cheeky was my only way to gather some attention.” Evfra turned suddenly grave. “It’s nice to have good memories. To be able to remember them. I do really miss them sometimes...” A deep sigh escaped his lips. Sometimes he asked himself how it would have been to have his mum and his sister messing around when he got his first apartment in Aya or catching up with his dad in the _tavetaan_ , perhaps after a successful Resistance mission. They would never know who he had become or the fact that they had finally won. 

Sara leaned her head on his shoulder, all wrapped in her cocoon, taking him out of his thoughts with her proximity. “I’m sure they would be very proud of you, Evfra.”

He breathed shakily, easing the spike of sadness on his bioelectricity. At that distance, she must have felt it for sure. Then, he recalled that she was not Angara but, first and foremost, that he shouldn’t be hiding his emotions. “What are you doing out here?” he asked with an even tone after a little while.

Sara sat back up, looking at him in the eye. “I don’t know… I just couldn’t sleep so I went out for a walk. But I saw you sitting here and I thought that you would appreciate my annoying company for sure.”

Without thinking, he darted a hand out to reach her jaw, cupping it with his fingers and lifting it up to examine the bruise. “Didn’t anyone teach you that you don’t stop blows with your face?”

“Ha, ha… very funny. I would have won using my biotics… I assume there are some things I cannot compete with. One of them is your strength.”

He allowed his thumb to slide over her jawline before withdrawing his hand. He missed the contact immediately. “You did a very good job there. I didn’t have you for such a good hand-to-hand combat specialist. Actually Jovak should be embarrassed... I will put him into an intensive training plan once we come back.” 

She burst into laughter. “Mhmmm… I don’t know if I should feel flattered because you think I’m good or offended because you think he’s bad... We might have to schedule a return to make sure who is the real winner.”

His answer was just a dry grunt, remembering, all of a sudden, what Jovak had plainly offered her after their combat. Evfra just assumed that she had accepted his proposal and he couldn’t understand what she was doing out there instead of being still with the soldier. If it would have been him, he would have kept her awake the whole night, pleasuring her until… _Skkuts_ , was he really thinking that, now? 

“Oh, don’t be jealous!” her tone was jokingly and easy and she bumped his arm with her shoulder, but there was a sourly note underneath. 

“I can’t be jealous of something that doesn’t belong to me… ” he replied, thoughtfully, and the human made a disdain gesture. Evfra had pushed her away so many times that he could perfectly understand that she had given up on him. She was brave, intelligent… A beautiful woman and a brilliant leader. For sure she deserved someone who knew where he was going.

They looked at the sky quietly again, although her face gave away that she was carefully choosing what to say next. “I could have said _yes,_ you know? But it just didn’t feel right… Whether I like it or now, I’ve got my eyes laid on someone else…” she explained, her cheeks blushing pale pink.

Considering the meaning of her words, Evfra peered down at her. She looked tiny and comical in that cocoon of blankets that only left her face exposed, all freckled and alien. “I never meant that you were a mistake, but I can’t…”

But the human scoffed with a thin smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Ok, Evfra… I understand. I don’t really want to talk about this. Not now. Let’s just enjoy the chat and the sky and the company. That’s all I ask.”

Her warm amber eyes were fixed in his with an intensity that paired her words and Evfra could discern in them a hint of disappointment. The Angara just nodded and looked back at the sky.

_What to do next?_

He couldn’t…. Or perhaps she was the answer he had been too blind to see. The way life was telling him to have a second chance. A bigmouthed, stubborn and sarcastic human that had the ability to get on his nerves and to stir his most deep feelings inside.

Perhaps...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I hope you are all safe. It took me quite a while to get this chapter ready: I've been changing it around for the last few days, adding stuff, removing some... And I'm still not very pleased with the final result, but I think I'll never be. So here it is. I thought that we really needed some Evfra introspection at some point and a bit more of his family story on a sweet side of Evfra, very different to what we have already seen of him. Sadly, one step forwards, two steps back with the Pathfinder, even if she had been as bold as she could, Evfra keeps pushing her away.  
> Next chapters have a lot of action on them, so get ready!  
> Thanks for reading and for the kudos. You are amazing!


	6. Chapter 6

Fastened breaths and thundering heartbeats. 

Those were the only sounds in the dark and messy warehouse where they were. Against all odds, still alive.

Alive.

Evfra finally lowered his rifle, easing the grasp on the grip. His hand hurt with the tension. He had shot the last of the Kett dead some seconds ago and the barrel was still burning hot. With a pained groan, the Angara stood up from his kneeling position behind the crates he had used to take cover, some steps away from Sara. He had been hurt somewhere on the leg but Evfra could only think of checking on the human first. With the feeling of having a wild adhi chewing his thigh, he walked towards her.

Sara was standing, paralyzed in the middle of the warehouse. Panting heavily and lightheaded after her biotic display, she looked around to see the sea of scattered kett bodies at her feet. All the crates had moved several metres away from her with the powerful first nova. Then, everything was blurred in a fight until the last of the Kett stood in front of her. After a sharp pain on her abdomen, the Kett’s face blew in a puddle of black and blue brain mass that splattered and covered her visor. 

Overwhelmed and struggling to breathe, she tried to clean it but only made it worse. In the end, she decided to unclasp her helmet and pulled it off. It took her some time to process what had happened. “ _Evfra shot him… Where’s he?_ ” she thought, scanning around with her heart in her mouth.

The Resistance leader walked limping towards her. He had also taken his helmet off and his expression was exhausted. 

Sara smiled, relieved.

And Evfra did, too.

They were just a couple of metres apart when a muffled boom followed by a shake wiped their grins away. 

Evfra detained his steps, vigilant. Listening. “Did you hear that?” he asked.

Sara nodded her head, baffled. She reached again for her abdomen: it burned. 

A distant echo in the guts of the facility became audible. Then, it turned into a roar at the same time that the ground and the walls trembled violently. 

It was happening: they were too late.

“Evfra! Sara! Are you there?” Jaal shouted on the comm.

The turbine was still spinning. The door was locked. There was no way to escape. They both looked left when a massive crack appeared on the wall and raced its way up towards the ceiling. A rain of powder and small debris fell on them, making it difficult to breathe.

The Resistance leader looked at the Pathfinder worryingly and she held his gaze, terrified but determined. Resigned.

There was nothing else they could do.

That was the end. 

Evfra’s voice echoed in the warehouse. “Jaal, retreat. NOW! IT’S AN ORDER!”

He had just finished those words when a new crack opened on the floor. The ground plate under their feet tilted brusquely, making them lose their balance and fall onto the ground. 

“Evfra!?” Sara shouted, terrified.

The rumble was deafening now. 

Everything shook violently.

The whole cracked wall shattered into deadly hailstone with a loud bang and the ceiling collapsed.

Evfra tried desperately to reach for her.

But the ground disappeared under his feet. 

The void engulfed them. 

***

_3 hours before_. 

Sara Ryder went into the briefing room all pale and puffy-eyed. The restless night had caught up with her at the end: she was not as young as for doing those things anymore. Evfra and she had just been conversing about their lives: her memories about her holidays on Earth, her relationship with her twin brother, her past in the N7 and all the planets she had visited in the Milky Way… Evfra had listened, eager to know more. But he had also spoken too, and it had been the closest to a friend’s chat they had ever had before. He told her about more of his mischiefs when he was a child, his adulthood birthday party and the hangover the day after, the first time he visited Aya with his mother, why he decided to be a pilot for the Resistance because he was a clever student and a brilliant soldier… 

The aurora borealis had disappeared from the sky and the first light of the morning was glimmering in the horizon already when they finally stood up to have breakfast and gather their equipment. That had been the most ‘angaran relatively normal Sara had ever seen Evfra before and it was… nice. She had enjoyed talking to him. Knowing more about him. 

That didn’t make bearing with her feelings any easier and the fact that he rejected her was still at the back of her mind, stabbing her painfully. 

But yet, she had more important things to focus on at the moment like, for example, the 13 pairs of angaran eyes that were already waiting in the briefing room around the virtual 3D map that showed the inners of the facility and part of the mines underneath it. They all turned towards her when she entered the room.

Evfra was already there, fully armoured, leaning on the table while examining the map. He gazed at her briefly with a grave expression.

Jovak was there too, charmingly grinning at her. 

Diverting her gaze from everyone, she adjusted the helmet of her worn-out N7 black armour under her arm and joined the circle between Jaal and Drack. Then, she made a small gesture towards Evfra: the briefing could begin. 

Taking a deep breath, the general spoke with his usual stern tone. “ _Paavoa_. I’m sure you all have read the summary of the operation that went out yesterday. The Pathfinder will be joining us for the mission as it will grant an important step forward regarding Andromeda’s resources. Resources that we will be glad to share with the Initiative if an agreement is reached. As a recap, this will be a strike operation: your intel found a security breach on the perimeter that we will be using to access the facility…” he pointed at a specific place on the map. “Two shuttles will take us to the mountain path, avoiding their land defences - team _tech_ will be working on that while we are inside.”

Evfra stopped his speech and gazed at Sara, inviting her to continue with a subtle gesture. She stiffened her shoulders, surprised about the sudden shared responsibility. All the eyes turned towards her. She would kill Evfra later for it, but she was not allowed to look hesitant in front of those people. So, she cleared her throat and spoke. “Hello everyone. SAM and I will hack the protection shield of the facility. Once it’s down, we will advance towards the ventilation ducts. Jaal and Qos will stop the turbines while the _engineering group_ unlocks the duct. This one,“ she pointed at the map. “We will get into the facility together and split up into two groups: Team 1 will cover the west part of the building. Team 2 will enter after and cover the east. We are not expecting a heavy resistance once inside and we count with the element of surprise, but we are not sure about how many Kett still remain in. Be wary.”

Sara quietened and Evfra waited for an instant before taking over. “Remember that we will be covering the ground and first floor, but no one gets into the mines. We have been able to trace a rough map of the facility. I sent a copy out yesterday and it’s already uploaded on your visor’s system. As the Pathfinder said, we don’t know for sure how many Kett are still in there. Once they have been eliminated, we’ll meet back at the entrance point. We’ll keep constant communication by comm and will carry a clear count of all the enemies found, understood?”

She raised her eyes from the map, flickering over each of his soldiers. “This is an essential operation for angaran people and I’m not shy to say that for my people too. Those ancient mines where the facility is built on were yours a hundred years ago and it was the most important lithium mining site in the whole cluster. You need those mines back in order to begin the reconstruction of your worlds. And so we do. _We_ have to recover what is yours. So let’s get our arses in that bloody facility and let’s kick those bastards out from there.”

***

_One hour before._

SAM disabled the shield after five tense minutes of complex hacking. They had gotten close to the facility utterly undetected and, then, it was the tech specialist's turn to do their magic on the turbine controllers separated a hundred metres of each other on the outside wall.

“ _In position_ ,” the Pathfinder said over the comm. “ _Qos is on it, already._ ”

“Received,” Evfra replied. Then, he turned towards Jaal. “How much longer?” he demanded. 

The purple Angara was squatting down next to the open wire box that controlled the ventilation turbines, tinkering with the wires and typing on his omnitool with a deep frown that meant that he was really focused on his task. “Give me two… or three perhaps. You gave me the difficult one, so it will take longer...”

The angaran leader grunted in response. He gazed at the other team on his left: Qos was not on sight but Sara was. Drack was nearby, watchful. And Jovak. Right next to her. Evfra furrowed his brow.

Jaal gave him a sideways look before sighing. Then, he stopped his doing completely to peer up at him. Evfra realized then that the changes in his bioelectricity - that he was doing his best to rationalise - had given him away. Even under the helmet, the angaran leader could feel the amused and overindulgent look his friend was giving him. “What?” he asked, roughly, knowing he had been caught.

Jaal shook his head. “Nothing… But, this situation is reaching a level of stupidity I’ve never seen before. We have to talk about this. Seriously.”

Defensiveness grew around Evfra’s field involuntarily and he glared at Jaal. Old habits die hard and he realized and soothed his field immediately, to Jaal’s entertainment. On second thoughts, perhaps sharing his worries with someone else would ease his mind somehow. Evfra sighed and nodded and Jaal seemed to be pleased enough to leave the topic alone and focus back on his task.

“ _Ey, sunshine. We are done here. How is Jaal doing over there?_ ”

“He’s lost skill since I sent him with you, Pathfinder.” 

Sara chuckled. “ _Yes, like always, blame the human for it… C’mon, Jaal! You built a transformer for Liam’s console and adapted your fantastic sensory cinematic system to our crappy old television… I’m sure this is a piece of cake for your expert mind. No pressure,_ ” Sara joked with a witty tone, making the angara’s frown sink deeper.

Jaal looked utterly confused about the translation of her words, but it was not the time to think about them. Not when he had something as important as their mission in between his gloved hands. “I haven't got a clue of what you mean by that, because wires are not edible and not sweet either but… Yeah… Exactly the same, Sara… It is exactly... the... same...” 

Suddenly, the emergency light on the turbine tunnel lit on and the blades stopped spinning. Jaal stood up, smugly smiling and lengthened his spine as much as he could, his chest swollen with pride. “I’m the best at this...” 

Evfra tapped his back fervently. “That’s why you are my lieutenant.”

Both groups met at the turbine duct and the engineers started to remove the grilles that covered it. After some minutes of hard work, they had been able to cut five of the bars, making the entry big enough to fit a krogan. 

Team 1 got into the facility first, led by Evfra while Team 2 covered the exterior. 

“All clear on the inside. You can come in,” the general said once his men had searched the massive warehouse they had ended up into. It was as empty as expected. And disorganized, with large crates and containers stacked up without any sort of order, all covered in a thick layer of dust. They occupied positions in front of the only door and checked up for CCTV cameras: there were none. 

Even so, Evfra couldn’t brush the feeling of wariness away.

Sara appeared last and scanned the place thoroughly before walking swiftly towards him. “It seems that no one has set foot in here for a while…”

The Angara nod to confirm her words. “Yes, but our heat sensors gave us biometric lectures both east and west of the facility.”

“How many?”

“We cannot get a proper lecture, but I’d say ten of them on each side, top.”

They stood in front of each other in silence while Sara dragged her Phalanx out of her holster, checked the clip and cocked it. Then, she sighed. “Everything looks too quiet, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s what we expected but it feels just… odd.”

Evfra agreed: he shared the same hunch. The same unease. “I don’t have a good feeling about this... Nothing is easy in Andromeda. It would be strange for this to be an exception.” His experience spoke for him but he strongly wished that he was wrong and things were different this time.

“Stay strong, ok?” she sighed.

“You too, Sara. Be careful,” Evfra replied. 

The Pathfinder seemed to doubt for an instant, trying to say something. Or to do something, perhaps. But, instead, she turned on her heels and joined her team and he couldn’t do more than wonder.

Evfra pulled himself together - there would be time for those distractions later - and strode towards the door: no wars had even been won relying on gut feelings but with good tactics. Perhaps this was just a stroke of good luck that they could actually use in their benefit. He checked on his rifle, turning on the silencer, and tightened his grip on it, finding the usual comfortable position of his finger on the trigger. Finally, Evfra looked at his men before giving the order. “Unlock the door.”

***

_Forty-five minutes before. Team 1._

Jaal opened the door for his team. The first soldier, Konri, peeked out swiftly, right and left, aiming with his rifle. “All clear,” he mumbled on the comm. Then, he stepped out to the corridor. Like in a very well-coordinated choreography, Team 1 advanced west, exploring the rooms and quarters on an empty ground floor corridor with flickering lights: two more storage rooms in the same condition as the first one, bathrooms and a massive garage where two vehicles that looked still operative and three dismantled ones rested. 

Evfra was just another special force soldier while deployed, moving stealthy and sneaking into the empty quarters as a part of the coordinated choreography. He had missed the field missions: during the last five years, he never had time to join on the battlefield, as occupied as he was in Aya leading his men in each of their worlds against the Kett. While walking on the corridor, everything looked dark, calm and quiet and, even so, he was not able to brush that uneasy feeling from the pit of his stomach. It was _too_ calm and _too_ quiet. Too much to be a good sign. The general would have lied to himself saying that he was not worried about the mission. And about her. 

The last room they visited on the ground floor was completely swallowed in darkness. After a little while of adjustment, he was able to distinguish bunk beds and cots. And some of them had been recently used. They deployed on the aisles searching the beds one by one until, suddenly, one of his men caught his attention and gestured towards one of the bunks with his rifle. Evfra looked at the signalled spot and his eyes opened in surprise.

_No. Skkuting. Way._

The beds were actually occupied: two Kett were placidly sleeping in them. 

Some of his men turned their faces towards him, waiting for instructions, and Evfra seriously considered waking them up and interrogating them to figure out what the trick was within that place. A pointless effort, most likeable: the Kett had never spoken to any Angara before. Not in any language they would have been able to understand.

Their mission was clear, anyway. “Nehga, top bed. I’ll take care of the bottom one.” 

Stepping towards the bed, Evfra drew his pistol out of the holster. His sergeant, Nehga, copied his actions. His hand didn’t shake at all when he raised his weapon to the kett's head. It would be a cold-blooded killing, but he was a soldier during wartime: that Kett was not the first one he had executed someone and it wouldn’t be the last one, either. Things were not easier than before, knowing they were their own kind, but there was no turning back from that condition. There was no cure for their disease. For being turned into monsters.

With the silencer on, Evfra made a quick nod at Nehga and they both shot twice on the kett’s heads. There were no sounds apart from the broken bone of the skull when the energy bullet pierced its way in and a muffled splatter of the blood on the pillow. 

Both men stilled, pistols still aiming at the dead bodies, just in case. But neither of the Kett moved again. 

“Team 2, we have found two in the dormitories,” he informed Sara, holstering the gun back.

 _“Understood. We have only found a bathroom... But everything’s clear for now and I’m starting to get bored, Evfra..._ ” she whispered, complaining. 

He scoffed but didn’t reply: the channel was not private. He would have liked to, but it was not appropriate to encourage any conversation that could disturb their focus on the mission. So, the Angara just smiled and shook his head. “We are heading to the first floor. Out.”

And things began to turn out more interesting, then. 

As soon as they stepped on the stairs, Jaal made a gesture to stop their advance. Some lights could be seen upstairs, flashing torches. The Angara halted, listening and scanning the dark. A group of Kett started to go down: a patrol. 

“Six… Not, seven. All seem to be armoured,” Konri informed.

“Find cover,” Evfra ordered in a whisper. There were no many places to hide, and it didn’t take long for the enemy patrol to realize that something was not as quiet as it should be in that place. 

Team 1 was caught. The Kett that seemed to be the leader screeched something that barely resembled words and they all drew their weapons. The first angaran shot impacted on its target: the leader dropped on the steps with a bullet in between his eyes. 

Chaos was unleashed then and, even with the silencers, the bang of the weapons echoed on the corridor’s walls like in an empty cavern while the bullets flew everywhere around. But after some minutes of tension, the last one of the Kett dropped dead and the only injury on the angaran side was a bullet wound on Ashaf’s arm.

Evfra went immediately to check on the Angara who had managed to extract, one-handed, a packet of balm from his belt. He couldn’t open it just with one hand and was starting to bleed profusely. Angaras were quite private with anything related to illness and wounds and he tried to respect that as much as he could but sometimes Evfra considered it ridiculous. With a swift gesture, he grabbed the sachet and ripped it open, applying it over the injury. The Angara hissed at the contact, probably more ashamed than pained, and Evfra squeezed his good shoulder in reassurance. “Can you stand?”

“Yes, of course… It’s just a scratch,” Ashaf replied defensively, playing it down. The arm piece of his armour was covered in deep blue blood. 

“Ok. Let’s go, then,” Evfra said, lending him a hand. “Pathfinder, seven more on the stairs to the first floor. That makes nine on our side,” he spoke on the comm. He didn’t mention the wound: that would be embarrassing Ashaf further.

“ _Bloody hell, Evfra, don’t be greedy. Leave some fun for us… Are you alright?_ ” Her voice was a distant murmur in his ears.

“We are. I’ll get all the dirty work done for you so you only have to relax and take the credit at the end, agreed Pathfinder?”

She scoffed. “ _You smug twat… The ground floor is absolutely empty, apart from the dormitories and tons of crates with lithium in a massive warehouse. Heading for the first floor now._ ” 

“Good. We are, too.”

Evfra focused back on his ground to cover while leading Team 1 up the stairs. The east wing of the first floor was utterly abandoned besides what looked like an empty kitchen and a dining hall with flickering lights.

“ _Oh! Hello!_ ” the Pathfinder said on the comm before the muffled noise of the bullets filled the line. After a little while, she spoke again. “ _Six down, Evfra. We’re fine. This looks like a control room…_ ”

“Received. Keep me updated.” 

In spite of the silence, the tension on his team grew when the last room’s door was hacked open: an armoury. And it was dark but, in contrast to the general disorganization, this place was perfectly neat and tidy. But half empty. “Inventory what’s in here, quick!” Evfra ordered and his men began to move.

“Kett rifles, snipers…” Jaal listed.

“Grenades. One box full, the others seem empty.”

“Heavy weapon ammo.”

“There are some _firaans_ and electric _firaans_ here, too.” 

“They might be low on weaponry. We have just won against them…” one of his men said.

The general grunted, low and slow, considering. 

“Evfra? All these crates are all the same type..” Nehga said. 

“What’s inside?”

“They are all empty except one… It has explosives, each of them enough to blow this whole floor.” The angara raised his eyes to Evfra. “There are six more boxes… all empty….”

The quietness reigned again after Nehga’s words. That was a mining place, it somehow made sense that the explosives had been used with that end. Perhaps. But there was too much… enough to blow the whole building up. All of a sudden, he had the strong feeling that they all needed to get out of that facility asap. “There’s nothing else to do here. Jaal, hack the door locked and let's go back to the meeting point.”

“Understood,” his men replied.

They had just left the armoury in the middle of the deadly quietness when a _whoosh,_ a loud _bang_ and a shot startled him on the comm “ _Fuck… Evfra… I screwed up. I missed one of them. Is dead now, but he was toying with the controllers… And now there’s this strange noise…_ ”

Evfra squared his shoulders, suddenly worried. “What noise?”

“ _I don’t know… A mechanical rumble... Like gears…_ ”

“ _Pathfinder, the elevators are lightened up._ ” Evfra recognised Jovak’s voice.

“ _Shit… All of them? Qos?_ ”

“ _I’ll try…_ ”

The comm crackled with statics. “Sara?”

No answer.

His heart fastened. Evfra gestured his men to head back. While making their way towards the stairs, their bioelectricity expressed uncertainty. The same as his. And worry.

The relief he felt when the crackled stopped and he heard her voice was huge. 

“ _Evfra? I think it’s time to head out…_ ”

“Sara, we are on it…”

“ _Shit. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Evfra, get the hell out of here. Quick!_ ” she shouted, her voice deadened by a burst of gunfire. 

“SARA? What is going on?” More gunfire ricocheted in his ears, together with eventual swearing, groans and screams. His breath hitched, a full shock of adrenaline flowing in his veins.

“ _There are lots of them, Evfra! Get the fuck out!_ ” she shouted on the line. 

“ _Skkuting teroshe_ … Team 1, pull back. To the meeting point as fast as we can. It seems that Team 2 is in trouble. Be wary. Go, go, go!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Could this have been one of the longest chapters I have ever written? Perhaps... I hope you were all bewildered with the beginning, muahahaha. I really needed to try this sort of sequence on the plot style. Sadly, you will have to wait to put both parts of the story together and know the events that led to that short bit.  
> I'm having such a good feedback with this fic that I'm utterly amazed. Thanks to everyone who is reading, leaving kudos, commenting and sharing it on Tumblr. You are all lovely! ❤️  
> Stay safe and see you next week!


	7. Chapter 7

_Forty-five minutes before. Team 2._

Sara watched him depart with growing regret, admiring the broadness of his shoulders in comparison with his narrow waist: the perfect swimmer body. Her mind betrayed her with those thoughts and ended up wondering if Evfra liked swimming. His naked back was the next thing that popped into her mind. “ _Shit! This is definitely not the best time, Sara!_ ” she scolded herself, coming back to reality and diverting her gaze away from him. 

She had wanted to tell him something else, wish him good luck or perhaps to squeeze his arm on a reassuring gesture. But that would only emphasize the awkwardness that had already settled in between them. In the end, a concerned _be careful_ did as a farewell when Evfra turned on his heels, impossible to read, and strode towards his men. 

She gulped down and bottled up any feeling she had, remembering to herself that she wouldn’t be acting like a spoiled child: he said that he couldn’t. And that was the end of it. 

No hard feelings.

She’ll live on. 

Although she was in terrible disagreement with his decision. 

“Mission first. Then, trouble,” she muttered to herself, brushing away her thoughts.

Once Team 1, led by the angaran leader, had disappeared towards their left, she gestured to Team 2 to get positions next to the door. When the steps of the other team were finally muffled by the distance, she peeked outside: flickering lights and an empty right side of the corridor greeted her. Sara deep-breathed. “Ok guys. Our turn.”

It turned out that special forces tactics and training - N7 Alliance marines, in her case - seemed to be quite similar, independently of the galaxy or the timeline they were in. That angaran team was superb, obviously being one of the best strike teams the Resistance had: they were skilled in stealthy attacks and recognition missions and, once the gestures for communication were clear, the rest had just been easy as pie.

The first room they entered had showers and a line of toilets that looked cleaner than anyone could have expected for an abandoned facility. And she was not the only one noticing. 

“There’s no dust or not dirt around… Someone’s been cleaning this area recently,” Jovak said after opening the last of the cubicles, looking for any sign of life.

“Well, everyone has to poop… Even in Andromeda. I’d rather do it on a clean toilet.” Drack added, thoughtfully.

“You are able to paint such lovely pictures in my mind, Drack… Has anyone told you that before?” Sara joked.

The krogan cackled a laugh. “Not really, but I’m glad my words are appreciated.”

“Well, I suppose we can confirm what we knew: there are Kett still in here. Stay alert.”

The lights kept flickering creepily when they left walking in the corridor where three more doors waited to be opened. However, they checked they were heavily locked, so Qos set to the task to open them. After spending a ridiculous amount of time hacking them, the group only found some crates and old dismantled bunk beds, junk and more scrap metal when they entered. _“Fuck! Great…_ ” Sara thought while exiting the last of them, still with that disgusting uneasy feeling at the pit of her stomach. _“This is meant to be a normal strike mission. Nothing here seems normal at all… ”_

The comm came to life then, “ _Team 2, we have found two Kett in the dormitories._ ” The booming voice of the Resistance leader startled her slightly. 

“Understood. We have only found a bathroom... But everything’s clear for now and I’m starting to get bored, Evfra...” she whispered, complaining.

He chuckled on the line but didn’t follow her jokingly lead. “ _We are heading to the first floor. Out._ ”

Sara sighed, a bit disappointed. She used to joke with her teammates a lot, back in the N7 and with her pathfinding team as well. She just couldn’t help it: a harmless way to relieve some stress. Walking towards the door, she ducked her head slightly, indicating her men that they were all to move on to the next room. And this new one was definitely more interesting than any other they went into before. When the door slid, the dim light inside discovered a huge warehouse, three times bigger than the one they arrived in. And it had been used recently, as the clear tracks and footprints on the dusty floor revealed. Massive containers with a silver-glimmering mineral were stored there and there was also a distribution line, factory-like, ready to put the rocks into smaller crates, ready for their transport.

That was more likely what she was expecting to find there. “Xaaj, Tenrif, Jovak and Qos, go to the left side. We will cover the right.”

“Understood.”

They raked the whole labyrinth of crates: empty. As well as the whole damn facility was. “Where the heck is everyone?” Xaaj asked once both teams reunited in the middle of the warehouse.

“Our intel didn’t mention how many Kett remained,” Kovaj explained.

“Yes, but at least finding any. I can’t believe this whole building is empty.” 

“This conveyor belt has been recently used, that’s for sure.” Drack slid his finger over the clean surface of the belt on the distribution line. The old Krogan was right: there was no dust on it and it didn’t show the trace of time as it should have been expected without use.

Just to confirm what everyone already knew, Sara scanned the content of one of the closest crates. 

“This crate contains lithium, Sara. High purity one,” SAM informed aloud.

The Angaras in the group emitted muffled triumphant sounds that didn’t ease her anxiety at all. “It’s exposed and not oxidized…. It must have been mined recently,” she replied thoughtfully, doing her best to remember her scarce mineral knowledge from the Milky Way.

“Less than two weeks, according to my calculations,” SAM added.

“And yet… where is everyone? Who dug it out?” Jovak was starting to understand her worries. 

“Perhaps they have evacuated…?” Qos suggested. 

“They could have sneaked past our surveillance, I suppose. But it’s quite unlikely...” she said, bending her neck left and right to ease some tension from her shoulders. “Let’s carry on.”

Team 2 was about to enter the corridor again when Evfra gave her an update. “ _Pathfinder, seven more on the stairs to the first floor. That makes nine on our side,_ ” he spoke on the comm, a little breathy perhaps. 

“Bloody hell, Evfra, don’t be greedy. Leave some fun for us… Are you alright?” she whispered back. Xaaj signed her that they had arrived at the stairs and she nodded. 

“ _We are. I’ll get all the dirty work done for you so you only have to relax and take the credit at the end, agreed Pathfinder?_ ”

She stilled and scoffed. A joke. From Evfra. At last. The tension on her muscles relaxed slightly. “You smug twat… The ground floor is absolutely empty, apart from tons of crates with lithium in a massive warehouse. Heading for the first floor now.” 

“ _Good. We are, too._ ”

Two more rooms that had mining tools: special suits for the frozen temperatures under the surface, boots, helmets, torches, picks… They all looked like if recently used, some of them still dirty and dusty. But, when they were about to deploy again on the corridor, the Pathfinder raised her arm and fisted her hand in a clear ‘stop’ gesture and asked for silence. Sara froze, listening. 

In the quietness around, rushed steps went down the corridor towards them. 

She aimed at the door. Her whole team imitated her. 

The steps overtook their hideout.

But a door nearby beeped and hissed. 

Everything was deadly silent again.

The group breathed out. 

“It’s the next room... Qos, you'll hack the door. I’ll enter first with a biotic barrier. Jovak, Xaaj and Tenrif behind me. Drack, you’ll charge with your barrier if anything is still standing. Qos, you are last, covering the corridor. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” they all replied in unison.

They moved to their left towards the penultimate door on that floor and Qos did his magic, overriding the opening software once again. It didn’t take him long this time to unlock the door. 

He nodded at the Pathfinder once he was ready and Sara breathed in. It was impossible not to feel the rush of adrenaline. It didn’t matter the years you had been in the military or how steeled your nerves were.

She activated her biotic barrier and secured her grip on her Phalanx. “Open it."

Then, everything happened on the blink of an eye.

Sara strode in. Six Kett were inside: two on her left, standing while cleaning mining equipment; four on her right, sitting down in front of control panels. They turned their heads at the same time, baffled with the intrusion.

“Oh! Hello!” she said. 

The ones on the left had their rifles on the table: they were clearly more dangerous.

Obviously, they reached for them. 

Sara shot one on the head.

Jovak shot the other one. 

The ones on the right side stood up and drew their pistols.

Xaaj and Tenrif killed two of them before they were able to aim, but the two others did. A loud bang was heard when they shot. 

Sara gasped and flinched, feeling the sharp pressure of the bullets on her biotic armour. Even if the barrier absorbed most of the bullet’s energy, the hit was still painful.

Drack charged against one of the bastards and killed him. 

Jovak ended the fourth Kett.

“Are you alright?” the green Angara asked her with an anxious bioelectric field around himself. 

That was the usual response every time she fought with a new teammate. “Yes. That’s the whole point of the barrier and my training: be the target. I’m far more protected than you are,” she explained, only a little prideful. He squeezed her arm in response, his bioelectricity sweeping her, reassuring. And it felt oddly comforting. _Wow._ That guy was genuinely worried for her… Did he really like her? She thought he had only been carried away by their sparring. Perhaps she had been wrong… It turned out that she was not very good at judging if Angaras fancied her or not... Speaking of which: Evfra. She smiled at Jovak, reassuring, and opened the comm. “Six down, Evfra. We’re fine. This looks like a control room of some sort…”

“ _Received. Keep me updated._ ” 

That room was not extremely big and was packed with, once again, crates of different sizes stacked up against the walls. Qos shut the door behind them and sat in front of one of the control panels, already typing fervently and trying to get all the information he could about the facility while Sara and Jovak stood next to him. Out of a sudden, the blackened window panes in front of them faded clear: five elevators that give access to the mine site were now visible in the adjacent room. 

“Well, great. It also looks empty... I think our mission is finished, guys,” she announced. “Qos, would you manage to find out what is going on in here? We need to figure out what they were up to...”

“I’m on it,” the Angara mumbled.

“Great! Do we have any readings from the mines?” she asked Xaaj.

He used the strange angaran artefact to scan the floor under them and ahead. “No… Nothing at all.”

Sara sighed. “Fair enough. I suppose this is it. Perhaps we have been just lucky in the end...” It was difficult to believe but, sometimes, strikes of luck existed in the universe...

Qos stiffened on the chair. His fingers stilled. His field changed. “Pathfinder, someone has just accessed the system,” he whispered.

That was more in line with the usual crap in Andromeda. A sudden worry made her come back to her usual alert-state. “From where?” 

“What does that mean, kid?” Drack asked.

“It’s on the same network… That means he’s in the building.” He typed some commands on his omnitool.

They hadn’t seen any other computers or control panels around and she wondered if perhaps Evfra had missed someone. 

Suddenly, a thought flashed in her mind: they hadn’t properly search that fucking room. “Shit, comb this place. Stay alert. Qos, any chance you can log him out, or block it, or whatever?”

The Angara turned anxiously towards her. He shook his head. 

“Well… fuck.”

Striding towards the chaos of crates, Sara joined Drack, Xaaj and Tenrif on the research. The piled-up boxes made a small maze-sort hiding place and the Pathfinder cursed herself in all the languages she knew. She had relaxed in front of what it looked like an easy mission: a beginner mistake. Those boxes should have been searched immediately after killing the Kett. Anger and guilt boiled in her stomach with her stupidity. And there he was: that fucking rat. The Kett jumped on her with a _firaan_ ready to stab her, but she was well alert. With a shockwave, Sara threw him away several metres, landing heavily on a pile of crates, knocking them down with a loud bang that echoed in the whole facility for sure. Drack didn’t give him the chance to stand up again, shooting him right in the head. A small tablet rested on the floor, next to him.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…” she mumbled, walking back towards Qos. “Anything?” 

Qos typed as if he was possessed. “It seems clear now, but…”

He didn’t get to finish the sentence: a quiet rumble stopped him. 

They all looked around, uneasily and deadly quiet. 

Perhaps it was time to warn the other team about all this crap… “Fuck… Evfra… I screwed up. I missed one of them. Is dead now, but he was toying with the controllers and now there’s this strange noise…”

Evfra’s gruff tone was way too serious for her liking “ _What noise?_ ”

“I don’t know… A mechanical rumble… Like gears…” 

Jovak looked through the front window pane to the mine elevators. His whole body tensed. “Pathfinder, the elevators are lightened up.” Jovak was right: there was a red light on top of each that hadn’t been there before. 

“Shit… All of them? Qos?”

The field of the young Angara expressed his uncertainty “I’ll try…”

Then, the line crackled with statics. “Evfra?” she called. 

No answer.

“ _Skkut_ … I can’t do it… He had initiated a security protocol,” the tech expert said, still not giving up and typing on the console. “There’s an invisible alarm flaring!” 

The Pathfinder cursed again. Loudly. Then, she opened the comm “Evfra? I think it’s time to regroup… We have triggered an alarm.”

“ _Sara, we are on it…_ ”

“SAM, can you stop the elevators?” the last resource.

“I can try to disengage the lifts, but it will take me time, Sara. They are nearly on the destination floor.”

Xaaj spoke then “Pathfinder, I have heat lectures from the lifts. 20… No, more than 25 Kett in them,” he informed. 

_Shit_ … Too many. If they came already armed, they wouldn’t stand a chance. In that exact moment, the rumble stopped. Team 2 looked at the mine entrance when the doors started to slide. But they didn’t stay to see what was coming down on them. Sara gave the orders. “Retreat! Back to the meeting point! Now!” she shouted at her men. They stumbled out of the control room and ran on the corridor towards the stairs, always protecting their backs in front of the imminent Kett appearance. 

The first burst of gunfire luckily found them already on the named stairs. Sara reached for Evfra, once again. “Shit. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Evfra, get the hell out of here. Quick!” The bullets ricocheted on the corridor behind them in heavy deafening contrast with the quietness they had some minutes ago.

“ _SARA? What is going on?_ ” the Resistance leader asked with unconcealed concern.

They rushed down the stairs, being closely followed by the Kett. With a furious groan, the Pathfinder threw a powerful shockwave up to cover their retreat and ran as fast as she could. “There are lots of them, Evfra! Get the fuck out!” she shouted on the line. 

***

_Thirty minutes before._

Evfra had deployed Team 1 on both sides of the door and Konri and himself waited on the corridor, aiming their weapons in the direction where Team 2 were to appear. Jaal was already working on stopping the turbine when Team 2 turned the corridor corner, sprinting towards the warehouse at the speed of light. Drack was half carrying Tenrif, who seemed to have been injured somewhere on his leg. Jovak, Qos and Xaaj ran, took positions and shot at intermittent intervals while Sara covered their retreat and kept the Kett’s distance using biotics. 

“Get in the warehouse!” she yelled from the rear, making Evfra and Konri retreat in. 

As soon as they burst in, Qos squatted down next to the door and started to type in his omnitool fervently. Right when the last one of them, the Pathfinder, had crossed it, the door shut and locked. An instant later, a burst of gunfire hit the metallic plates on the other side. 

Gasping for air, Sara spoke to him. “For how long can you keep them outside?”

Qos seemed quite self-assured when he spoke. “I can revert their opening attempts for some minutes…” They both looked at the door when it screeched on its rails: the Kett seemed to be trying to force it open somehow. 

Evfra materialized next to them, demanding information to evaluate the situation with a harsh hoarse voice and a strong and powerful bioelectric field around himself that made the hairs of her arms bristle. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“I didn’t order to check the whole room… One of them activated a security alarm and it must have alerted the Kett in the mines. There were 25 of them, more or less, but the elevators were bringing more up.” Her breath was still ragged: a combination of the race and the energy burned by her biotics. She felt guilty about her beginner's mistake.

The Angara made a sound similar to a thoughtful hum. “There’s no need to panic: we can confront them here,” Evfra assured. 

“But I don’t think we are able to stand a second wave… We don’t really know how many of them there are…”

A rumbling sound came from the depths of his chest, menacing. Then, he turned his face to speak to Jaal. “How long with the turbine?”

If Angaras were able to sweat out of nervousness, Jaal would have been a perspiration puddle right then. “Two minutes. The alarm resets the systems, I had to begin from zero again. Give me two minutes!”

The cold intensified when everything turned suddenly quiet. Evfra and Sara gazed at the door, preoccupied with the silence coming from the outside.

“Oh, _skkut_ … They are hacking in. I can’t keep them out,” Qos exclaimed, his voice and field uncertain. 

It was time to make a decision.

The Pathfinder gave Evfra an affirmative look and he got the meaning of it immediately. His voice boomed in the warehouse when he began to bark the orders. “Everyone, take cover. We are not letting those bastards in here, but we are to retreat. Jaal, you have one minute to stop that turbine. Injured next to it, ready for the evac. Team ground to shuttles, do you copy? We need an immediate pickup.”

“ _Affirmative. We’ll be there in one,_ ” the lead pilot responded.

“Good. Let’s show those bastards no one messes around with the Angaras.”

The door slid fully open at the same time as Jaal stopped the turbine.

The first burst of gunfire resounded when the Kett made their way into the warehouse as an overflowing tide. Bullets flew over everyone’s head, rebounding on the walls and shattering parts of the boxes the ally teams had hidden behind. An angaran grenade was thrown at the door, killing the first wave of enemies and giving time to Konri and Tenrif, being carried by Qos, to go past the turbine and into the duct. 

“Don’t let them pass the threshold, guys!” Sara was fully aware that her vanguard training was not that useful at distance combat but, even so, she kept shooting her Phalanx, aiming for their heads.

“Team 1, evacuate, now!” Evfra rumbled. 

His order was a statement for Team 2 to cover the other’s team retreat. Jovak, Xaaj, Sara, Evfra and Drack remained in the warehouse while the other team escaped through the air duct. 

The Kett had made their way into the warehouse and were deploying behind the crates next to the door, advancing positions. There were too many, far more than any of them had expected for sure. 

“ _Evfra, Sara, shuttles are here. You need to get out. I don’t know for how long I’ll be able to keep the turbine stopped,_ ” the communication was creaky and full of statics, but they all heard Jaal’s information on the comm. 

“Oh, crap… I have to admit that this is not at all what I was expecting for this mission…” Sara shouted to Drack, who was literally next to her but for sure wouldn’t be able to hear her words under the bullet rain.

“Well, a good fight is welcome from time to time. Andromeda was starting to turn boring,” the krogan said with a low chuckle before turning around to shoot with his Piranha a random Kett that had gotten too close to them. 

Sara left her cover to throw a shockwave towards the group that was gaining terrain on Evfra’s side and the Angara used their stop to shoot them on the head with an enviable aim. 

“Damn, he’s good with that rifle…” she said aloud without thinking.

Drack grunted next to her. “I hope that is not a euphemism of any sort…” The Krogan cocked his shotgun and shot again over his head. 

Sara rolled her eyes. Sending the mouthy Krogan to hell would have been an outcome for his pun if they wouldn’t have been in a life-death situation. But they were.

“Drack, Jovan, Xaaj, out!” Evfra shouted when the enemy numbers decreased enough to be manageable between the two of them. 

Both Jovak and Drack showed their disagreement, but none of them disobeyed his orders. With just 7 Kett standing, both leaders would manage to cover their companions' retreat. 

One. Two and three, both shot. Sara got the fourth and knocked the fifth and sixth with biotics. Evfra killed them both in a military beautiful coordinated teamwork. The seventh was smashed towards the furthest wall. 

Evfra sprung up, and so did the human. “I think it’s our turn to flee, _sunshine_ ,” she panted before running towards the turbine. 

They were both entering the air duct full speed when Sara felt his hand fisting her armour and making her stop on her tracks. He jerked her back with whole strength and she fell backwards onto the warehouse with a pained moan. 

Without fully understanding what was going on, she sat up and looked around, confused.

The turbine was back on and she had been about to run into its blades. Evfra had saved her life.

Her breath hitched, mildly in shock. 

“Jaal? What happened,” Evfra snarled on the comm, lending her a hand to stand up. 

“ _It turned back on… I couldn’t… The code changed! Give me some time to override it again._ ”

“Jaal, keep calm. Just tell us when it’s ready,” she breathed out quietly once she stood, trying to ease the pressure over his shoulders. 

But Evfra didn't take it as calmly as she did.

“ _Skkut… Skkut, skkut, skkut_!” the angara shouted frustrated, stomping on the floor with each step. 

Once he quietened his outburst, the rumours of steps on the corridor began again.

“Shit… Second wave… They’re coming...” She looked at Evfra, her expression reflecting an unease that he couldn’t see under the helmet. But Evfra knew: his field had also changed into something wild, menacing and primal. He was determined to survive. And so she did. In a fluid movement, they both hid behind the crates next to the duct. He checked his rifle: a standard movement to verify how many clips he would be able to spend. Not many, and it was not a surprise at all. 

Sara seriously considered taking her helmet off to eat one of her glucose bars, as the lightheaded feeling of her exhausted biotics was starting to be alarming. Instead, she focused on her fastened breath, trying to relax. Their strategy had to change if they wanted to survive and she knew Evfra wouldn’t like it. “I’m going to get in the middle of the fight once they come in. I’m more useful in close combat. I trust you to cover my back.” Her voice was weak but determined.

The roar of the steps grew louder on the corridor, running towards them.

The blue Angara nodded without arguing at all: they were screwed up; they had to do their best to survive. “Are you aware that the final step of the alarm might be blowing up the whole facility and the mines…?” Evfra mentioned, expressing aloud his deepest worry. 

The tension spiked at his statement at the same time that the rushed steps reached the warehouse door.

“We’ll get out before that happens. And if we do so, I promise to buy you another bottle of your favourite _tavuum_ to share with me. Deal?”

Evfra caught just a glimpse of her worried expression before her blue biotic barrier shone around her. In the blink of an eye, Sara charged against the mass of Kett on a blur of unstoppable energy.

And the Angara clang to her promise: he raised the sight of his rifle to his eye level and began to shoot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! These chapters are finally turning up longer than I expected, to be honest, but I hope you enjoy them! I can tell you that the next chapters would have more feeling-related topics and less action. All the conversations over the comm are perfectly coordinated - fuck, yeah! - so both chapters match perfectly. Thanks to everyone who's following this fic, leaving comments and kudos and sharing it on Tumblr. I didn't expect this response at all, tbh. You are all amazing! 😊😊😊  
> Stay well and safe.


	8. Chapter 8

The first wave of kett Sara charged towards were shocked and paralyzed by her boldness. With a biotic barrier around her persona and ending up in the middle of the attackers, the human jumped and used the gravity pull to punch the floor, activating her biotics at the same time with a yell. The nova exploded around her, throwing every kett and crate in a radius of 3 metres flying away from the epicentre. 

She gasped for air once everything went quiet and Evfra stared at her with unconcealed admiration. However, there was no time to stop. As soon as the kett stirred on the floor, the angara did his part, aiming and shooting them all with surgical precision. One after the other, the knocked down kett fell dead around the Pathfinder. 

But that was not all.

In a blurred rush, more enemies appeared on the door and made their way into the warehouse. Sara stood up, her biotics flaring again. In the blink of an eye, she charged, digging her omniblade to the hilt into an alien neck and shooting another kett with her Phalanx. Meanwhile, Evfra had cloaked himself and was making his way towards the centre of the fight, striking the enemies with his _firaan_ from behind. Once he had another good aiming spot, he killed: breathe in, aim, shoot, breath out. As many times as he could before the kett reached his position again and he had to move. It was during one of his sneaks when one of those bastards grazed his leg. The angara dropped on his knees at the sharp pain, muffling a furious groan. But he had them worse: far much worse. Right when the kett was ready for a new shot, Evfra put a bullet in between his eyes. Then, he stood up and pushed on.

Sara felt lightheaded and didn’t know for how long she’d be able to keep up. Moving across the battlefield at the speed of light, pulling a barrier over herself, charging before shooting was an excessive waste of energy that she would have to recover. Neither shockwaves nor novas were an option anymore, as depleted as she was. 

They lost track of the time. They just killed enemies, being hard to distinguish anything else apart from their strong shared survival instinct. The only sounds around were the grunts of the kett, the bang of the guns and the inner voice that told them that they had to keep going, at any cost. Both their hearts hammered in their chests, a common physiology trait, altered by the danger and the hormones that kept them stubbornly fighting for their lives, trying to survive. 

And they did. 

Everything went suddenly quiet.

Fastened breaths and thundering heartbeats. 

Those were the only sounds in the dark and messy warehouse where they were. Against all odds, still alive.

Alive.

Evfra finally lowered his rifle, easing the grasp on the grip. His hand hurt with the tension. He had shot the last of the kett death some seconds ago and the barrel was still burning hot. With a pained groan, the Angara stood up from his kneeling position behind a crate, some steps behind the Pathfinder. Evfra could only think of checking on the human first. With the feeling of having a wild _adhi_ chewing his thigh, Evfra walked towards her with the only thought of feeling her safe.

Sara was standing, shaky but paralyzed in the middle of the warehouse. Panting heavily and terribly dizzy after her biotic display, she looked around, noticing the sea of scattered kett bodies at her feet. Everything was blurred in a bloody close fight until the last of them stood in front of her. After a sharp ache on her abdomen, the kett’s face blew in a puddle of black and blue brain mass that splattered and covered her visor. 

She tried to clean it but only made it worse. Overwhelmed, she unclasped her helmet and pulled it off. Panting heavily in the comforting cold air, it took her some time to process what had happened. “ _Evfra shot him… Where’s he?_ ” she thought, looking around with her heart in her mouth.

The Resistance leader walked slightly limping towards her. He had also taken his helmet off and his expression was exhausted. 

Sara smiled, relieved.

And Evfra did, too.

They were just a couple of metres apart when a muffled boom followed by a shake wiped their grins away. 

Evfra detained his steps, vigilant. Listening. He looked at the Pathfinder. “What was that?”

Sara shook her head, baffled. She reached again for her abdomen: there was blood and it burned. 

A distant echo in the guts of the facility was audible. Then, it turned into a roar at the same time that the ground and the walls trembled violently. 

“ _Evfra! Sara! Are you there?_ ” Jaal shouted on the comm, obviously anxious.

The turbine was still spinning. The door was locked. There was no way to escape. They both looked left when a massive crack appeared on the wall and raced its way up towards the ceiling. A rain of powder and small debris fell on them, making it difficult to breathe.

“What the fuck…?” she muttered, coughing. Although the answer was quite clear at that point.

The Resistance leader looked at the Pathfinder worryingly and she nodded, terrified but determined. 

There was nothing else they could do. 

Evfra’s voice boomed over the roar. “Jaal, retreat. NOW! IT’S AN ORDER!”

He had just finished those words when a new crack opened on the floor. The ground plate under their feet tilted brusquely, making them lose their balance and fall onto the ground. 

“EVFRA!” Sara called, terrified.

The rumble was deafening now. 

Everything shook violently.

The whole cracked wall shattered into a concrete deadly hailstone with a loud bang and the ceiling collapsed.

Evfra tried desperately to reach for her.

But the ground disappeared under him. 

The void engulfed them. 

They fell into the darkness. 

A rock hit her back, making her groan, but also made her finally react. Exhausting her biotics, she pulled the angara closer and clung to him as hard as she was able to. Evfra’s strong arms circled her before she created a barrier over them both. 

They landed on the rocky surface with a heavy thump, with her falling on top of him. Without giving time to come back to their senses, Evfra jerked her off him roughly, shoved her onto the ground and laid over her, his weight making it difficult to breathe. As dazed as she was, his behaviour didn’t make any sense until the downpour of rocks and rubble that hailed from above began: he was protecting her from the debris. 

His first impulse had been to shelter her with his body.

The blue angara was firm and huge, looming over her smaller frame slightly propped on his elbows. Sara was somehow able to pull a weak barrier over him, but still, she felt him flinch in the darkness when some of the wreckage hit his back. With their faces a few centimetres apart, they could feel each other's sharp breathing, both unsure about the outcome of that catastrophic mission and their own survival. 

The roaring of the collapsing building decreased over time and the concrete hailstone interrupted at last. And Sara sighed in relief: a shaky and exhausted breath that mingled with his one. Evfra’s trembling muscles relaxed slightly, lowering him down fully over her body. One of his hands automatically went to her head, to caress her scalp with tenderness. He brought their foreheads together, his nose touching hers, his lips hoovering her mouth. 

“We are alive…” she whispered hushedly as if it was hard to believe. 

Evfra grinned. “We are…” He wanted to laugh silly but his ribcage hurt. “This has been one of the most stupid things I’ve done in a very long time,” he muttered with a low rumbly chuckle.

After a few seconds of adjustment to reality, the angara became suddenly hyper-aware of the intimacy of their posture: Sara was huddled under him, their bodies flushed with each other and her mouth was just an inch away from his. 

His breath hitched. It was dark enough in the cave so Evfra could barely see her underneath him, but he could perfectly feel her: the warmth of her body, her breath and the softness of her lips. A solid desire to kiss her grew uncontrolled: to enrapture those sweet plump lips with his to celebrate they were both alive; to caress her silky tongue with his...

Sara’s heart thumped in her chest with his proximity and her expectancy, but she didn’t move a muscle, waiting for him to make the final move. To bridge the minimal distance that separated them. To overcome his doubts.

She parted her lips, inviting.

He wanted to devour her.

And she wanted him to do so.

“Sara, I would advise treating your injuries immediately: you have reached 10% of blood loss. I have eased the pain raising your level of cortisol, but I can’t keep it up for longer without putting you in danger.”

That did it: SAM the killjoy: the inappropriate moment and unresolved tension shattering into pieces with the inexpressive AI voice. Sara rolled her eyes, blissfully unaware of her own body ache. She was bleeding out to death and was not able to feel any warning signs of it. 

“Are you injured?” Evfra asked her, propping himself up on his elbows, moving away from her. 

The resigned human missed his weight and his warmth on her immediately, mentally cursing the AI’s _perfect timing_. She didn’t feel much, perhaps a dull sting on the left side of her abdomen, but the flash of a _firaan_ piercing her armour and entering her torso came back to her mind. Feeling no pain was definitely not good. It was actually far away from being good.

“I don’t know… I can’t see anything. Where are we? Are there any lights here?”

Evfra wriggled over her to make the remaining pieces of rubble fall from his body. Then, he knelt with a disgruntled hiss, remembering with the motion his own wound on the leg and the more-than-sure broken ribs on the left side of his torso. He turned on the torch on his suit, lightening a small area around them, and examined their environment: some large concrete beams and chunks of the building just like many small debris surrounded them but at least they were not trapped. “We must be in one of the mining sites under the facility… That means there must be an exit somewhere.” He stumbled up and walked around the small cavern, examining the walls.

Sara sat up, grabbing her side. Her euphoria had started to fade and, together with it, the numbing effect of the cortisol in her brain. “Evfra? I think SAM’s right and I might need first aid…” she explained with a thin voice, at the feeling of the warm dense liquid that pooled on the ground and dampened her hand and her armour. 

Right then, the dim lights on the mine came back to life thanks to the angara’s tinkering on a found electric panel. He strode back towards her and couldn’t avoid feeling a bit of anxiety at the sight of her scarlet blood all over the grey rocks. She looked up at him with a shaken expression, paler than usual.

“Shit, I didn’t know it was this bad…” Sara admitted while trying to stand up, palming her wound. 

“Sara, blood loss is reaching 12.5%. I would recommend immediate action.”

“Yes, fuck SAM. I know. I’m on it.” 

Evfra supported her arm and walked her towards one of the big concrete chunks, the closest to the lights. “What is your first aid procedure? I’ve never treated a human before...” he asked, trying to remain calm in spite of the circumstances. However, his bioelectricity gave away his unease: Evfra had dealt with many injured resistance soldiers over the years but obviously never an alien. The amount of blood that was pouring out of her injured abdomen would have been enough to knock down a grown and healthy angaran male already.

“I don’t need your help, don’t worry. I can do it on my own… I had worse,” she stubbornly stated, extracting two sachets of medigel from a pocket in her suit while still holding her side to stop the bleeding. She groaned in pain while undoing the arm clasps of her armour. 

Evfra’s expression turned into a full mask of annoyance at her refusal. “I didn’t know humans were as stupid as angaras regarding the injuries treatment…” he retorted with disapproval.

The Pathfinder huffed while removing the armour pieces with some difficulty. “It is not… We are not... I have to strip down.”

As an excuse, it sounded terribly poor. His frown sunk, confused. “You don’t want me to see you naked? I’ve seen you naked already.”

“Not as vulnerable… I don’t like anyone healing me. I have a thing about it...” she admitted.

“You cannot be serious… Don’t make me take your armour off by force.” His voice was a deep menacing rumble and his statics made the tiny hairs on her arms stand at attention. 

Understanding how pointless her reasoning was and considering how much she trusted that stubborn angara - nearly more than anyone in that galaxy - the human gave in, resigned. “Here. It has to be applied into the wound and locally around…” she explained, handing the medigel out to him.

“Good. Take your suit off,” he ordered dryly.

Sara scoffed. “I thought you’d never ask me again.” 

But Evfra didn’t feel like joking. He gave her a pinning stare in response to her sarcasm and breathed slowly, doing his best to calm down and speak with an even tone that didn’t give away that he was nervous, worried sick and clearly losing his patience. “Sara, how do you take your armour off?” he asked, purposely gruff and slow.

As a new twinge of pain shook her body, she flinched and gritted her teeth. Perhaps it was not the best time for wittiness. “On my back. There’s a big clasp in the middle. Just pull it and the breastplate will come off.”

Evfra walked behind her and did as he was told. With a subtle snap, the chest and the back piece of her armour fell, clanging onto the ground. Her black undersuit stuck to her body as a second skin. “I need this off, too. And lie down,” he demanded, tugging at the back of the suit.

Sara obeyed, undoing the front zip and exposing her sports bra once the jumpsuit was around her waist. “Shit, it’s cold in here,” she complained, pressing her hand, fully stained on crimson, over the wound and laying down on the crates. 

Evfra squatted down next to her and, delicately, pulled her hand up, uncovering the injury. Blood trickled from it, dyeing her stomach and streaming down her back, coming from a small puncture that pierced the side of her abdomen. The angara grunted. “SAM, what are her vitals? Is she ok?” 

“15% of blood loss. Reaching 20% would put Sara’s life at risk. Her blood pressure is dropping quickly. That’s not a good sign. Her heart rate is 89, but slowing down. She’s also hypoglycemic: the consumption of a glucose and carbohydrates bar is advised.”

By his words, Evfra inferred treatment couldn’t be delayed any further. The angara rushed to wipe the blood with a clean gauze and open the medigel sachets.

Sara ran a shaky hand over her face, brushing her dampened hair away. It was too cold for having a clammy forehead. “Evfra, I think I’m gonna pass out,” she told the resistance leader, feeling the world blur on the edges. 

Evfra’s eyes darted up at her with alarm. “What? Don’t you dare...”

She focused on her breath. “Not my choice, believe me. Medigel first. I need the bars in the shoulder piece of my armour when you finish.” 

With a nod, he spread the thick ointment over the wound and dipped it slightly in with his index, making her flinch at the motion. “Will this be enough, SAM?” There was a hint of desperation on his voice.

“Yes. The medigel will cut the haemorrhage and repair the damage on the artery. More medigel will be needed to close the wound.” 

Sara sighed, eyes closed shut. “You are not really helping with such a detailed description on how fucked up I am…” Steps and a rustling sound made her open her eyes, even if she was extenuated. It took a while to focus her sight. “Evfra…?” Her throat felt raspy and dry.

“I’m here… I’m getting these _glucose bars_. Here...” The angara handed the food out, trying to keep his hardened facade on but his mettle was starting to crack. He was worried, terribly worried for her life. And he hated that feeling with all his might and soul. 

Sara struggled to chew and swallow a bite of it, as dry as she felt her mouth. Her eyelids weighed heavily and she realized she couldn’t keep her eyes open for any longer. 

She was exhausted.

She closed her eyes.

When Sara opened them again she couldn’t be sure for how long she had been out. It took her some time to adjust her blurred vision to the lack of light. Evfra was sitting next to her, his eyes distilling concern and fear, intently fixed on his own hands on his lap. “Ey, _sunshine..._ ” she barely said with a tiny voice. 

When she spoke, Evfra’s eyes darted up to her face and his face showed an infinite relief. “ _Stars above_ … I’m so glad you’re awake…” He had covered her with a dusty blanket, to keep her warm. 

“For how long have I been out?”

“Nearly 30 minutes…” His voice twitched with the words, just like his bioelectricity, uncontained. He breathed out slowly, calming down, his hands nervously interlaced while tensely fiddling with his fingers. “Don’t you ever do this again, do you understand?” His voice sounded far more rough and gruff than he expected, but Evfra couldn’t help it. If he wanted to practice his angaran feelings recognition, that was the perfect timing: all his concern spiralled, together with his anger, his anxiety and a pinch of sorrow. 

Sara chuckled weakly. “Trust me if I tell you this was not at all in my plans for today…” she joked.

However, her wittiness only seemed to irritate him further. “How can you be so lightly joking about this? You nearly lost your life!” His voice boomed in the cavern, echoing, all the softness in his voice forgotten. 

But the Pathfinder was not the one to shrink in front of his irrational irritation. “Oh! Excuse me if I got a bit injured after dealing with a fucking kett army. This is what I do: my fucking pathfinding job. It’s not my fault the risk-taking and the high-chance-to-die came on the small letter.”

His words just sound confusing when his translator couldn’t find a proper interpretation for them. However, Evfra understood enough: that is exactly what he had been trying to avoid by all means: worry. Worrying for someone else. His frown deepened down just like the tips of his lips sunk down, suddenly acknowledging the truth. 

But Sara didn’t let him speak. She carried on with her outburst, clearly recovered and out of her wits. “I don’t think you and I are that different while risk-taking, _General_. Yes, I’ve been less lucky this time and I had it worse than you, but that doesn’t erase the fact that you have a fucking shot on your leg!” she yelled, all her energy clearly back. She breathed out a couple of times, trying to control her unleashed temper while Evfra diverted his glare from her, looking back at his fisted hands on his lap. “You know what?” she carried on. “Just drop it. This conversation is absurd… Why are you so pissed at me?” her voice inquired, getting lost in her throat. Hurt. Resentful.

Evfra’s heart throbbed. The truth was right there, clearer than ever. “Because I do care about you, Sara... Because I do...” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know it's a weird day for an update and I know it's been nearly three weeks *looks down shamefully* but I moved, and life happens, and work is stressful, and my DAI long-fic required my attention, and *insert your excuse here*. But here we are: the aftermath of their battle, a little bit of unresolved tension - obviously! - life-threatening injuries and more. I hope you liked it! I love having Evfra and Sara messing around each other, arguing, and showing their unresolved issues here. I think this is the most teasing fic I've ever written! Hopefully, the waiting will reach an end soon. Perhaps... We'll see...  
> Thanks for reading guys! And for the comments and kudos! They are super motivating and all of them and really welcome - and, why not to say it, make me really happy!  
> See you all soon!


	9. Chapter 9

Silent treatment. Old good silent treatment together with some eventual pouting and frowning: the whole set of a six-year-old tantrum. The only sounds in that damn tunnel were her light steps and his heavier ones, following her like a shadow.

Evfra had been really pissed some hours ago because of her outburst, but the time in silence had lengthened for too long, becoming way too dense and far too uncomfortable. Actually, if he seriously thought about it, perhaps it had been his fault… He should do something with his voice tone… His annoyance started to dissipate at the realization, although he was not ready to fully blame himself about that stupid quietness. Besides, his confession of caring about her had been the icing of her irritation clearly, but it was not his fault that he cared. She told her that she cared about him some months ago as well and he didn’t take it badly. But they were just colleagues back then, he couldn’t even call her a friend. And now… He didn’t want to use the word _dibellen_ , although his inner self knew that would have been the correct choice: Evfra was fond of her, he was irremediably attracted to her. Perhaps _dibellen_ was the correct word in the end... 

Right after their argument, she offered him help but he took care of his injuries by himself applying some of the salve he always carried in his belt, as it was not serious. Angaras didn’t bleed easily and the graze of the bullet was nearly coagulated already, meaning there was no need to worry about it: it was not life-threatening, but just painful. There was nothing he could do regarding his broken ribs: he could feel that they were not puncturing any important organ - which was definitely good - so he just packed up without any further words, and followed the Pathfinder towards the only exit in sight. 

They walked through a mining tunnel that was big enough for him to fit without problems. A cord of light illuminated the space poorly, marking the straight slope visible ahead. That made him think that they were getting deeper into one of the mountains that circled the facility but going up towards the surface. 

“Hopefully, this tunnel will have an exit on the other side of the mountain...” he commented, gaining an apathetic _hum_ from Sara. 

_Oh, right… We’re still not talking..._ Well, the truth is that he couldn’t remember anymore why he was pissed off at all. 

Sara was walking a few steps ahead of him, the dirty blanket wrapped around her head and her shoulders as he had done before in the angaran camp base during their night chat. His eyes skated down beyond the appealing curve of her waist. _Mesmerizing_ was the best word to define the swing of her hips every time she took a step and he couldn’t do more than admire the tight roundness of her…

The angaran resistance leader cleared his throat while brushing from his mind the inappropriate line of thought and the memory of his hands exploring its firmness some months ago. “ _This is not the time and you are an idiot fool. Stop this before it gets out of hand…_ ” he scolded himself. 

But the tiny voice in the back of his head secretly told him that it was already far too late for that.

He frowned and grunted softly, limping after the Pathfinder. 

Sara checked on her omnitool, scanning the signal, but there was only noise back. She sighed tiredly before resuming her march. That routine was repeated a couple of times more during their quiet walk.

For how long had they been walking? He couldn’t be sure at that point, but the intensity of the combat they won and the nearly non-existent sleep from the night before was finally catching up with him. Evfra was exhausted. He only kept going because that damned human seemed to be tireless and he was as stubborn and proud as she was: the Resistance leader wouldn’t be the one showing weakness, even if his ribs were killing him and his not-injured leg was starting to overload with his limping.

But everything changed when he realized she was stopping more frequently to check on his omnitool. Her halts went for longer and her face was starting to shift from an annoyance to clear desperation with the lack of progress. After a new non-successful communication attempt with their ground team, she rested her back on the wall with a concealed sigh, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. Her breath was shallow and Evfra knew that he was not the only one having a bad time keeping up that pantomime of untiring infinite hiking.

“Sara, I need to rest. It's far past midnight and who knows for how long we’ve been walking non-stop. I’m sure we both could do with some sleep…” 

She opened her eyes to gaze at him fully expressionless, looking pale under the improvised hood and Evfra thought, for a brief second, that she would just keep walking, as stubborn as she was. But Sara finally nodded her head, agreeing. “Let’s have a couple of hours.”

The second sentence they had exchanged during their walk. 

The angara sat heavily on one of the nooks that opened at the sides of the main tunnel, his back against the wall. Perhaps the years were also taking their toll on him more than he was happy to admit: all his body felt sore and it had been a while since the last time he was that worn-out. Sara quietly joined him, measuring their distance, sitting close enough to be safe in case anything happens, but cautiously apart. 

She was still utterly ignoring him. “It's freezing in this place, why don’t you sit closer?” he asked, pacifying.

Nothing was intended by his comment but stating the truth: he could regulate his body temperature to make the cold more bearable. She couldn’t. As she had said before, _humans don’t do well in the cold_.

“I’m fine, thank you,” she dryly replied.

Evfra made a wry face. “Sara, can you tell me why you are so upset about?” He didn’t want to begin another quarrel, so he put extra effort into making his tone as soft as he was able to. 

She didn’t think twice before answering. “No. When we get out of here,” she said, wrapping further into the blanket before laying down on the floor, her back turned on him.

“ _Skkuting stubborn woman_ …” he thought, emitting a low annoyed grunt and laying on his side too, his back turned on hers as well. 

Everything was quiet. Deafening quiet. That calm that their own breaths felt thunderous in the tunnel. Evfra was not usually the one to let his guard down, but with the sensory deprivation, sleep began to overcome him. A relaxing feeling invaded his whole body, spreading from his chest to his limbs and the tips of his fingers. All the tiredness of the combat, the mission and their nearly-dead experience finally coming back to bite him.

He closed his eyes, already drowsy in the quietness. 

But when he was giving in to the sleep, he heard it: a low rattling sound coming from somewhere nearby. 

His eyes darted open in alarm and listened, all his senses back in the game. Yes, there it was again: quiet and muffled, a really fast tap-tap sound nearly imperceptible. He frowned, confused, wondering what that could be. “ _Some sort of mechanism? Or perhaps a small animal pacing...”_ Without giving away he was awake, the angaran leader sat up and scanned left and right just to see nothing around them.

Then, a new round of the sound started and there was no doubt this time: it came from his right. Wait… _Did it come from Sara? Was Sara emitting that sound?_ Even covered under the blanket, Evfra could see her trembling. _Was she having a nightmare, perhaps? Did humans dream? And what the skkut was that sound?_

She shuddered quietly and bent her knees up to her chest, circling them with her arms. 

“ _So, she’s awake…_ ” Evfra had seen her cry before and this didn’t look like it, so he could discard that option. “ _It must be something else. What if she’s still bleeding?_ ” The medigel closed her injury on the outside, but he couldn’t know about the inside… SAM would have told him if that was the case, wouldn’t it? Evfra finally decided to ask. “Sara, what are you doing? What’s wrong?”

“No-nothing… It’s cold here. Really cold. I was f-fine while walking b-but now…” she shuddered again, still facing away from him, and wrapped herself further on the blanket if that was even possible at all.

Evfra breathed out, feeling an infinite relief. “What is that… sound? Can you hear it?”

She scoffed, weakly. “M-my teeth, chattering… It’s a common reaction when the body temperature decreases… Just don’t ask me why… You’ll have to ask Lexi.”

Well, that didn’t make much sense. “Oh… Are you just cold, then?”

It took her a little while to reply, probably thinking again about all that shit about showing weakness. “Y-yes,” Sara finally admitted.

Evfra grunted softly: an acknowledgement grunt. _That stubborn woman…_ He shifted closer to her without standing. When he was next to her, he stopped, considering just for a heartbeat: time enough to lie to himself saying that he wouldn’t obtain any pleasure from what he was about to do. 

“Unroll the blanket,” he told her with a soft voice and, surprisingly, she obeyed without complaining. He laid on his side, right behind her, and covered them both with the blanket. Then, Evfra shoved an arm over her waist and pulled her close until their bodies were flushed together. Every inch of skin under their armours, every soft curve on her body flushed with his, her hair tingling on his cheek. With a tender motion, he nuzzled the back of her neck, brushing the soft strands away, involuntarily inhaling her: the salt on her skin, but also the sweet and floral scent of her perfume. His arm circling her middle section tightened, splaying his fingers with care over the memory of her injury and Sara finally relaxed under his touch.

Belonging… That felt just right, having her in his arms. Voeld could stop spinning at that point: he wouldn’t even care at all. The damn mines, the pointless facility, the fact that they hadn’t spoken to each other since their argument, who knows how many hours ago… 

Evfra used his bioelectricity to make his body temperature rise a couple of degrees, hoping it would be just enough to keep her warm. He would need more than a full cycle under his solar lamp once they were able to exit that damn tunnel, but he’ll do it with infinite pleasure. And the strategy seemed to work because Sara stopped shivering after a little while. The curious grind sound that her jaws made disappearing too. A peculiar reaction to deal with the cold...

Wriggling her small body slightly under his embrace to find a better position, Evfra heard her sigh and then she stilled again. Her hand cupped his over her abdomen spreading warmth in his chest. 

_Stars above_ … It just felt too good. He had it bad… And his bioelectricity gave it all away. Evfra wondered if she would be able to read him. 

“I’m sorry… For my outburst before and the silent treatment. Now I think of it, it sounds a bit childish…” she whispered quietly.

“It’s me who should apologize. I was terrified you were fatally injured. I… sort of had it on you. I shouldn’t have.”

“What a messed up pair we are…”

Her comment made him chuckle but, then, he turned mortally serious, digging up in his memories. With a breath out, he began his story. “When my family was killed, my partner… I couldn’t save her. I fought but I couldn’t… That feeling of helplessness… It will be with me for the rest of my life. I felt the same when you passed out. I thought you would die. And I am terrified of feeling that pain again.” 

Evfra buried his head on her hair and Sara squeezed his hand, reassuring. She whispered back to him. “I’m sorry, Evfra. I’m sorry you had to go through that, I cannot imagine... I told you I understand that you don’t want to...“ 

But the angara cut her off. “You are perfection, Sara: caring, compassionate, beautiful and strong… You how to rile me up: a force of opposition. And I admire you. I’ve grown quite fond of you… I deeply care for you...” 

She paused, considering his words. “What stops you, then?” 

“I’m scared of loss...” 

At his last line, Sara wriggled and turned around to face him. “I don’t think it’s my task to heal you from your pain or from your fears, but I can help you if you want to. I...” she blushed slightly. “I quite like you, Evfra. And I’d be happy with whatever you want to give me. And I’d be happy waiting if you need time to figure things out.”

His field sparkled with the warm feeling that grew in his chest. A warmth that was reflected by his smile while caressing her cheek with tenderness. Sara mirrored his grin and Evfra felt that a terrible weight had finally eased from his shoulders. His hand slipped to her orange hair, caressing her scalp and Sara met his eyes: amber and promises. 

Her smile turned mischievous from out of nowhere. “You know… This could be a good time to _figure some things out_...” she said, suggestively playful but within a clear pantomime: it was way too cold to even think of it. 

The angara snorted, catching immediately the easy intent of her words. “I cannot deny that your offer is tempting, but you deserve better than a frozen hard ground…” he said in a deep rumbling tone.

“Actually, I don’t have any issues with the ground at all, but I agree with you on the ‘cold’ bit...” The sly smile never left her lips and Evfra quietly cursed the temperature of his _skkuting_ world with a groan. But, after her mood easing, her expression went grave again. “Thanks for telling me, Evfra. About your partner and about what is going on in your mind.” 

“I thought you should know… I had enough of denial. I'll... try to sort things out...“ His hand moved to her chin to cup it between his gloved fingers while Sara looked at him with delight. His thumb caressed sluggishly along her lower lip before the angara decided to finally bridge the short distance between them.

Evfra kissed her, soft and shy, just a gentle caress of his lips on hers. It was not demanding, not intending an innuendo of any sort, and it locked inside a whole world of meaning for them both.

She was smiling sweetly when he put an end to their shared moment. Evfra wrapped his arms around her while she curled closer to him, her head buried on the hollow of his neck. 

After a little while focusing on the relaxing feeling of combing her hair, Sara stirred again, intrigued. “Is it just me, or your body temperature is higher than a minute ago?.” 

His reply was preceded by a chuckle. “It’s called _thermoregulation_ … Angaras can do that by transforming our bioelectricity. But I’ll need to lie under a sunlamp for at least two days after this…”

“Mhmmm… Does this mean you are getting hot for me?” The playful cheeky tone was back although she didn’t move from his embrace at all. 

Evfra could do nothing left that snort. “You are incorrigible… Did you know that?” 

She shivered a bit, repressing a chuckle. “I know… And you like it.” 

“Yes, and I like it,” he admitted, dropping a kiss on her hair. 

Evfra didn’t sleep at all. Who could do so in that awful rocky ground? But she did, as he noticed by her even breath and those small starts that always preceded the dreaming. After two hours, the angara woke her up and, reluctantly, let a lovey drowsy-faced Sara go. Feeling pins and needles all over his body and his ribs even sorer than before, but having her asleep in his arms was worthy of any ache: he would endure worse without complaint if the reward was that deep feeling of belonging again. And Evfra was amused when her main worry after being fully awake was inspecting his armour for any sign of her drooling while asleep.

The mood had obviously eased compared to the previous day. Not that they were having fun precisely, Evfra still limping and Sara engulfed by the blanket, but the walk was definitely less miserable. Just after a frugal nutrient past/protein bar breakfast and a couple of hours of walk, the upwards inclination of the tunnel became more pronounced and the cold intensified. Out of nowhere, he could smell again the snow of his homeworld and the thought provoked him joy.

Fresh air. 

But he didn’t have the chance to speak to Sara before their comms came back to life with a crackle. “ _Ryder, do you copy? General De Tershaav?_ ”

Her eyes opened wide in surprise and Evfra sighed in relief: now more than ever, everything would be fine.

“Shit. Yes! Gil? Are you there?” she asked, her voice expressing her joy and her excitement. 

“ _Fuck! It’s them! It is them!_ ” someone, probably the human called Kosta cried out.

“ _Sara! I’m so glad you are alright! Is Evfra with you?_ ” that sounded like his lieutenant, Jaal.

“I am. Glad to hear you all,” Evfra confessed with a breath out.

Sara looked at him with glowing eyes and a beautiful smile on her lips. “We’re both a little bruised, but well. I think we’re reaching the end of the tunnel, Gil, can you pick us up?”

“ _I’m already here, Ryder. Jaal was able to track your heat signal a couple of hours ago. We’ve been following your steps since then._ ”

In a relieved gesture, the angara ran both hands over his skull, feeling the tiredness and uncertainty evaporate at last.

But before Evfra was able to come back to his senses, Sara had literally jumped on him with a giggle, her arms circling his _jinesh._ Her face was the perfect picture of playfulness when she pulled him down to reach his lips, stealing a quick kiss from him. She retreated with a cheeky smirk, leaving Evfra longing for more. But before she could unclasp him from her embrace, the angara reacted, cupping the nape of her neck and tangling his fingers with the soft strands of her orange hair there. 

His mouth demanded hers this time. 

It was rushed and messy, just enough to tease her plump lips with his, but he felt her smile blooming against his mouth and even felt a pinch of pride when her knees buckled slightly. “I know a certain someone who owes me a bottle of _tavuum…_ ” His tone was as cocky as he was able to, still sharing the same breath.

“Damn… You remember that… I hope you also remember that it was for sharing…” she acknowledged with wittiness.

The scarred tip of his lip curled up smugly. “I’m sure you told me you didn’t like it last time… Is it a date, then?” 

His nose nuzzled hers involuntarily when Evfra circled her waist and stretched back up to his full height, lifting her from the ground with him. Sara squeaked and cackled a laugh to, finally, free herself from his embrace. “I think I’ll make the effort for you and… yes, we have a date,” she stated, winking an eye at him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dibellen: darling one, a person you are fond of.  
> (Translation provided by [The Angaran Expansion Project](http://www.angaranexpansionproject.tumblr.com/) )  
> ***  
> Hi guys! Sorry for the delay, but these 2 weeks have been crazy. I do really hope you enjoyed this chapter where, finally, our favourite angara is giving a step forward on their relationship! Sweet kisses from Evfra, isn't that cute? ^^  
> Thank you for the comments, kudos and the support on Tumblr and, like always, thank you so much for reading!


	10. * Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: NSFW content ahead. Explicit sex.

The decreasing light of the sunset on Voeld flooded the cargo bay where the figures of two male angaras stood against the blacklight. Sara crossed her arms, trying to wash down the nervousness in the pit of her stomach and waited for them to make their way in. Liam stepped forwards to welcome Jaal with a tender grin and a quick kiss that the angara returned with amplified emphasis, gathering the human in his arms and pulling him closer for a proper kiss as if instead of two days without seeing each other it had been a whole month. An awkward smile bloomed on her lips at their tenderness before she noticed that Evfra was also grinning thinly with their doing: that was a new side of the Resistance leader she had never seen before and that tiny curl up of his scarred lip was really hot, indeed.

Speaking of which… She had wanted to speak to Evfra during the two days they had stayed on Voeld after their little adventure, but it had been an impossible mission. As always in that galaxy where nothing happened as you expected, neither of them had the time for it: medical examinations, some sort of angaran photosynthesis to replenish energy, infinite videocalls, reports, reports and more reports…The tasks list was a never-ending story proving, once again, that they were both workaholics by need. 

It was the sight of the backpacks what made her come back from her daydream, being suddenly aware of a very prickly detail. She cursed herself in a mumble, realizing she had no idea what would be appropriate to do regarding quarters arrangements. The last time the angaran leader boarded with them, he slept in the Tech Lab with Jaal - although Sara had the suspicion that Evfra had been alone during the whole trip to Voeld; Liam and Jaal more than probably sharing quarters already. But now things were slightly different after what had happened in the facility and their fleeting kisses in the mines. Considering that it wouldn’t be the first time they sleep together, Sara would have no problems inviting him to her quarters to share her bed, but would he accept that? Was it too soon or too daring? Would it be pushing him too much? Actually… In what terms were they exactly?

Her multiple questions only dissipated, leading into extra awareness of the environment around herself, when Evfra walked towards her with a deep scowl, his precious smirk deleted completely from his lips. “Sara, I’m afraid that you _estimated_ Director Tann and my _beloved_ Moshae Sjefa required us immediately for an urgent meeting…” His voice was imbued in a short of sharp sarcasm that was difficult to ignore.

“Wait, what? Right now?”

He nodded with a wary face and Sara just breathed out tiredly: conversation between them would be postponed. “Ok… No rest for the wicked, I see… Do you want to leave your things first in…” She stopped herself, gesturing awkwardly with her hand, realizing she had just pronounced the question she was trying not to. 

On the corner of her eye, Jaal and Liam snickered at her hesitancy and she pinned them both in place with a frozen glare and a furrowed brow. However, if Evfra noticed her hesitation, he didn’t pay any attention to it. “We’ll discuss that later. We need to deal with this meeting before.” 

Far more than secure than she was and, as if it was his ship instead of hers, the angara took the lead towards the meeting room on the main deck. “They wanted to speak to us. Both of us. But I didn’t know you were not in the facility anymore, so I told them to hold on. Let’s say that the conversation was escalating into an argument quite quickly...” Considering how serious his voice and his bioelectricity were, a mild concern was starting to settle. 

“Ok… And I understand that you were using your best diplomatic skills with Director Tann...” she teased him, sardonic.

“I’m not the only in this room that hates Director Tann…” the replied with a scoff. Well, that was true. “But I wanted to give an opportunity to your people to have a competent leader in front of the negotiation.”

That was considerate of him. Flattering indeed. “Were you talking about the mines already?”

Evfra dropped his stuff on the floor while in the room, and strode towards the table. “Yes, we were about to. But Sjefa and I… I hope you understand we can’t just give it away without asking for anything in return.” 

Sara cocked an eyebrow at him. What would angaras possibly want from them? But, before she had the chance to ask any further, the videocall was pinged through. A grumpy salarian with a defensive posture and an even grumpier Moshae Sjefa with a clearly dominant pose appeared, full-body, in front of them.

Evfra squared his shoulders next to her, lengthening his spine: he towered nearly one head over her, especially when Sara leaned her weight on the table, resting her hands on it.

“Ey, you! I heard we had a disagreement regarding some digging… Can anyone fill me in on what is going on?”

“ _Paavoa_ , Sara. As I said to Evfra before, I’m glad you are both safe and sound. Evfra told me about your _affairs_ in the mining site with all detail and I just wanted to let you know how happy I am that it had helped to strengthen ties in between you two and our species.”

Sara froze and many different things happened at the same time with her words: Sjefa smiled but there was a hint of mischief in her eyes. Tann, arms crossed over his chest, remained impassible, unaware of the second meaning the speech was imbued with. Evfra’s field crackled in embarrassment that badly that made the hair of her arms bristle and Sara felt her face reddening nearly immediately at his reaction, the well-known heat sensation creeping up her cheeks. _For fuck’s sake, what had Evfra told to that woman?_ Even if her words had been polite and secretive in front of Tann, the innuendo was there, crystal clear.

Her reply was quick and spontaneous. And honest. “Thank you, Moshae. I cannot deny that some bridges have been built during this mission. I hope we are both able to keep them up.”

It took her less than a blink to reply. “Oh! I’m sure you will, my dear.” Her smile was wide on her face and somehow motherly. Clearly uncomfortable, Evfra cleared his throat, urging Sjefa to drop the matter.

“Can we focus back on the topic, please?” Tann pleaded, not getting where all the embarrassment came from. “I have a colony to run.”

The Moshae muffled a displeased grunt at the back of her throat as the same Evfra would do, and Sara discovered how much she liked that woman. 

“I’ve heard that you know how to put up a fight, Pathfinder.”

“Well, you have been well-informed, Moshae. But I had a very good teammate covering my back.” The angara next to her grew a little with the compliment.

“Evfra explained to us before the whole mission and the battle and I’m really glad to have you both safe and sound here.”

“Thanks, Moshae.”

Yep, Sara definitely liked her very much. Until Tann’s voice interrupted her thinking. “However, I’m sure it could have been done with less damage to the facility. You created mayhem in there. The building is irrecuperable, destroyed, just as most of the mining chambers...”

“It was either our lives or the facility, Director Tann. I think we made the correct choice,” Evfra added in a very diplomatic way but the gruffest tone ever in front of Tann’s grumble.

Tann crossed his arms, uncomfortable. “I didn’t mean that your lives were spareable, but are you sure it couldn’t have been done without blowing everything up?”

“Tann, for fuck’s sake, you read the report! Do you really think there was any other way? Besides, we didn’t do it. They did!” Sara asked, actively fed up with the questioning already. “And the mineral is still there...”

The salarian breathed out. “Fair enough. I don’t want to argue this any further. Moshae Sjefa, we kindly request access to the mining facility to start with the rebuilt.”

All the eyes focused on the angaran woman then, expectant. “And we are happy to share the mines with the Initiative as we have been sharing all the resources on Heleus already without asking anything in return. However, this time we would like to have access to your healing balm: medigel. We would like to experiment with its effectiveness within our people and study its composition. It’s a technology we are interested in obtaining.”

So, that was the request. Sara was not surprised: _quid pro quo_. Nothing was for free in any galaxies, and Andromeda wouldn’t, once again, be an exception. 

Medigel was a blessing for every alien back in the Milky Way: an immediate analgesic and a coagulant agent. Created originally for humans, it could actually be applied in all the species, having the same medical effects and without secondary effects. Angaras had something similar already: a salve that was able to cut haemorrhages in a short time, but it was not even half efficient as medigel was. If it would have depended on her, she would have given it away for free the first week they established contact, as a peace offer. But, obviously, the decision was not hers to make.

Unsurprisingly, Tann looked scandalized. The only one of them. “That… I don’t think... I mean… Medigel was quite an achievement within the Milky Way alliance. Humanity had a paramount role in its creation and shared it with all the other sapien species, I don’t know if it depends on me to provide with that information…”

“Tann, in the representation of humanity, I don’t think it’s fair not sharing the wonderful technology that medigel is. It is our duty towards our allies and humans will be happy to give diverse samples to the Angaras.” Her own tone sounded showy in her ears. But that was what diplomacy was about, right?

“Pathfinder Ryder, you are meant to be on my side in this quarrel...” Tann warned her.

“And I am… Do you want your damned lithium or not?” she replied with her best fake smile.

The salarian fidgeted nervously at her words before speaking again. “Fair enough. You’ll go to Aya to polish the details of the negotiation, the ulterior agreement and the exchange, Pathfinder. I want a report on everything every day, with all sorts of details, understood?”

“Deal! Are our allies happy with the decision?” She looked at Evfra and Sjefa, questioning. The Moshae nodded slightly. “Perfect! I love it when a plan comes together.” 

Tann grunted with a furrowed brow, understanding that a decision had been made and he had nothing to do with it at all. “Over and out,” he muttered grumpily before disconnecting his interface. 

As soon as the salarian disappeared from the group call Evfra stiffness disappeared, his field brushing over her slightly, unwinding, leaving a nice ticklish sensation on her exposed arms. 

The Moshae smiled from the table. “Thanks for your support, Pathfinder,” Sjefa expressed her gratitude with a small bow of her head 

“You’re welcome. Although I totally meant it: I don’t think it’s something we should keep to ourselves and it will benefit you wildly.”

The eyes of the hologram peeked at the General with something similar to pride before peering down at her again “I see you on Aya very soon, Pathfinder. Be good, you two.” And, without giving them time to reply, she hung up, leaving them both alone in the meeting room.

“ _Oh. Well, back to reality_...” The rush of nervousness came back when Sara recalled that Evfra was still standing next to her and they still had some sleeping arrangement to figure out. 

The human straightened up and turned to her right to face him, a blunt invitation to shove his rucksack in her quarters ready to be spoken aloud.

However, the words died in her already parted lips when the angara stepped closer, lifting a hand to the nape of her neck in a gentle caress, starry blue eyes looking into hers with intensity. There was no hesitation, no guilt or indecision in his actions. With a quirk of a smile, he bridged the distance between them and kissed her.

And this time it was not a shy chaste contact as it had been in the mining site. His lips felt a bit harder and thinner than hers but hotter and extremely soft in a way she hadn’t perceived before. The angara entangled his fingers on her hair when his tongue teased her daringly, pulling a muffled moan from the back of her throat. 

He smelled like spring: fresh soap and flowers, familiar enough but yet unknown. Without knowing how exactly, Sara found herself cornered between the table and his frame while the kiss grew harder, deeper and, shortly after, ravenous. White heat rushed through her veins: a mixture of excitement, expectancy and dim flashes or their last time together, making her lust pulse in anticipation. With their bodies flushed, the angara lifted the human by her waist and sat her on the table. Then, he settled in between her parted legs to carry on with his demands, his kiss leaving her utterly breathless. Sara moaned when his tongue found hers again and his hands descended eagerly towards her buttocks, giving them a shameless squeeze. 

_Stars above_ … that was daring… What in Voeld was going on there? She broke the kiss to giggle and Evfra used her halt to descend a thorough path of kisses and nibbles down her jaw and neck, ignoring her laughing. He was damn fine at kissing - and teasing - but she needed to breathe. And she needed him to peel her clothes off. And she needed him to fuck her hard right on that damn table. Now.

“Mhmm… If I had known that pissing Tann would have this outcome, I would have done it before...” she mumbled in between hard breaths.

The angara stopped his doing with a scoff, looking at her intently with his beautiful eyes. However, the pupil had enlarged as badly that it was swallowing all his starry irises. His breath was agitated, nearly panting, when he leaned his forehead on hers, recovering control just enough to speak. “I want you, Sara. I want you right now. I want to pleasure you until you beg me to stop…” He cupped her chin, stroking her damp lower lip with his thumb. 

The want in his eyes, the hoarse undertone of his voice, his bioelectric field, barely manageable around them both… Everything pointed that he would actually fuck her on that table senseless if she just let him. “Ahm… Well, that just solves the sleeping arrangements quite well, I suppose… Do you want to come to my quarters?”

Evfra gave her a quick smooch before nodding, scooping her up on the air, his hands supporting her weight from her bottom - that he seemed very reluctant to let go. With a giggle and a wriggle, Sara tried to escape from his embrace without success. The angara gathered his rucksack on the way out, walking with the human in his arms as if she weighed nothing. 

They kissed: waiting for the lift; again outside the tech lab and again at the door of her own quarters, pinning her against it. And each kiss spoke of need and wonder to be finally fulfilled. With a moan and a huge effort to put her brain at attention again as lost as she was in the feeling of him, Sara was able to open the door. He stepped in, still carrying her in his arms, her legs circled around his waist and kissing fiercely.

And, suddenly, it was there: that annoying midi music ringing in her ears and, right after, a sudden deadly quietness in the room: they were not alone. 

She broke the kiss and they both gazed at their right, where the sofa and the screen were. And it was to discover the three shocked faces looking back at them: an opened-mouth Peebee, and two smirky Liam and Jaal stared at them from the seating, frozen with the intrusion as the videogame was.

“Out,” the angara gruffed, menacing. But, after she rolled her eyes, he added on a more polite way. “Please...”

Redness crept up her cheeks when Peebee gave her a wink and a knowing smile and Jaal mumbled a _enjoy yourselves_ sort of line before the door slid close, finally alone in the privacy of her quarters. 

And, with an utter lack of flourish, his backpack was finally dropped on her floor.

“Mhmm… that’s an interesting move. Will all your belongings stay with me from now on, _sunshine_?” she asked before nipping at his scarred lips, playfully.

His face turned suddenly serious. “There have been… considerations. Many of them, indeed...” Evfra looked at her when speaking, only breaking eye contact to go back to her lips: to go back home. He made his way towards her bed and sat on it with her on his lap, the mattress sinking under their combined weight. His voice sounded velvety and soft when he spoke again. “You are worth the risk, Sara Ryder, and I’m sorry if I haven’t been able to see that before. You are unique in many ways and you pull me inevitably: I am truly attracted to you and I want us to be together. There’ll be many things I’ll have to relearn about being with someone, but I’d like for you to be with me while I figure it out. While _we_ figure this out. Will you have me?” 

Her heart skipped a beat at his sincere words and her grin widened wildly. That was a declaration: probably one of the most beautiful ones she had ever had before. It rolled on his lips and into her ears, spreading warmth in her chest. “Yes! Of course I will, Evfra.” She nuzzled his nose at the feeling his bioelectricity washing over her exposed skin with bliss and relief. “I’d gladly do that together. You and me. To figure _us_ out.” 

The angara smiled thinly and they kissed again, tender, soft and gentle, paced but intense. Full of meaning and passion. Every caress lingered along their bodies. Every stroke over their skin sent sparkles of joy, all turned into a minimal unit of pleasure per se. Evfra took off her t-shirt and her bra with unexpected expertise, his hand easily cupping her bare breasts and toying with the small rosy bud on their centre. 

“I'm quite happy that you did some research on this matter before…” she moaned lewdly at his motions and, in response, Evfra pinched her nipples, making her gasp with awe. 

“If you dislike anything I do…” he mumbled, his mouth occupied in biting that blissful point between her neck and her shoulder, giving her goosebumps. 

“I promise I'll tell you. But your approach is working correctly for now...” Sara gasped again when Evfra licked at the bite: that would leave a mark for sure and she was more than happy with the idea of showing it around proudly. 

Desperately to feel more of his skin, she fiddled unsuccessfully with the buckles of his uniform. When he finally realized of her struggle, Evfra helped her to peel it from his body. Immediately after, she opened her palm on his chest, pushing him down and ordering him to lie on the bed. 

And Evfra complied. 

His skin had the most beautiful shades of blues she had ever seen before, blending from cobalt on the edgy areas of his body to nearly white on the centre of his abdomen and inner legs and arms. He also had a splatter of nasty reddish scars splayed over the left side of his torso that spoke of painful memories. Sara ran her hand over them, reassuring, and he shivered under her touch. Nearly immediately she felt the need to test how sensitive he actually was. She repositioned herself between his legs and leaned over him under his attentive watch, proud at the shallow rising of the breath in his chest. Sluggishly, Sara dropped a path of kisses and nibbles from his mouth, following his jawline, his neck, and the fleshy part of his _jinesh_ , gathering his reactions. She recreated for longer on the areas that draw a subtle change on his bioelectricity or a small gasp out of his lips. Then, she lingered further down, over his chest and his abdomen, kissing his scarred skin with devotion until he actually groaned at the contact of her lips on his abs. 

That was more than an interesting response, but she couldn’t reach further down to his navel because of the border that his trousers made. She looked up at him: Evfra’s eyes were intently fixed on hers and his breath was clearly shaky. Sparkles of statics cracked on his skin, brushing Sara’s too and his hands were fisting the bedsheets really hard. Her smile turned mischievous when she decided to carry on with her teasing, ignoring his clothing to focus her attentions on the crescent bulge in between his legs. He muffled a groan at the back of his throat when she nipped at his erection over his clothes. 

However, before Sara could even ask him to give her a hand with the unclothing, Evfra had helped her off him and had jerked his trousers off, shoving them away on the floor. Sara did the same with her leggings and underclothes before straddling his lap again, her arms circling his neck. 

They would have time, plenty of time to explore themselves further, to kiss every inch of their skins, to figure each other out until they both screamed their names. But she wanted him now. She needed him now. The feeling of him in her. 

Her breath was hitched, desire flooding each of her sense and pumping pure molten heat in her body. Evfra was more than ready for her and so she was for him, so she lowered herself down, slowly sheathing him in. 

As their first time, the stretch burnt a bit at first but a tide of pleasure immediately replaced it when she began to rock her hips. His large hands clasped her with strength, guiding her in her movement while riding him unhurriedly. Then, he sat up, his chest flushed to hers and feeling every inch of his skin, his hands bracing her body with devotion while letting her leading the encounter. 

It was intense. Impassioned. They kissed at first. Then, they were sharing ragged breaths, feeling each other’s heart thumping in their chests. There were sparkles, electricity crackling around them in a blur of want and unrushed fulfilment. 

Belonging. 

The slow-built climax struck her like a bolt of lightning. Sara cried his name, leaving crescent moon marks on the muscles of his shoulders, peaking that hard that it also triggered his orgasm. Evfra came in her with a groan and both his arms circling her shimmery body possessively. His bioelectricity discharge sent a new wave of pleasure washing over her skin, making her scream. 

Spent and dizzy because of its intensity, Sara leaned her forehead on his shoulder. Evfra reached for the nape of her neck, entangling his finger on her now damp orange hair, panting. 

“Is sex with you always like this...? Pfff… ” She didn’t know how to follow the sentence, her mind blank after the mind-blowing orgasm.

“Leaving the great Sara Ryder without words is a great achievement, I reckon...” Evfra teased her after with a chuckle. 

That gained him a good slap on his arm and a fresh wave of laughs that he replied with a tender kiss on the tip of her freckled human nose. They remained together, sharing the warmth and the glow of the aftermath for a little while.

“How much does your species appreciate sleep?” he casually asked after a moderate time, running a hand sluggishly over her back. 

Sara looked at him, cocking an eyebrow on an incredulous gesture and playful smirk bloomed in her lips at the same time. “Mhmm… Why? Are you going to keep me awake all night, Evfra…?”

He kissed her, his cock throbbing back to life still in her. “I might be up for a second round if you are, _temptress_...”

“You’re a teaser… don’t make promises you cannot keep up with…” she wittily replied, rocking her hips slightly. 

But, before she could finish the sentence, Evfra had thirstily reached for her lips again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end. 
> 
> Thank you all for this trip to Voeld and for following this series! I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I did writing it and thank you for your kudos, shares in Tumblr and comments. I loved reading your reactions and opinions, they are always the motivation to carry on writing.  
> There might be more stories coming - we still have a pendant date with tavuum involved, some sort of diplomatic ball that my mind is already brewing, a trip to Havarl... Like always, let me know if you want more!  
> Take care, guys! And stay safe! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to leave kudos if you liked it. Or if you want more ❤❤❤  
> ***  
> Follow me on Tumblr  
> [AnaVakarian](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/anavakarian)


End file.
